Measurements of Dielectron Production in Au$+$Au Collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}$ = 200 GeV from the STAR Experiment

Abstract

We report on measurements of dielectron ($e^{+}{e}^{-}$) production in Au$+$Au collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 200 GeV per nucleon-nucleon pair using the STAR detector at RHIC. Systematic measurements of the dielectron yield as a function of transverse momentum ($p_{\mathrm{T}}$) and collision centrality show an enhancement compared to a cocktail simulation of hadronic sources in the low invariant-mass region ($M_{ee}<$ 1 GeV/$c^2$). This enhancement cannot be reproduced by the $\rho$-meson vacuum spectral function. In minimum-bias collisions, in the invariant-mass range of 0.30 $-$ 0.76 GeV/$c^2$, integrated over the full $p_{\mathrm{T}}$ acceptance, the enhancement factor is 1.76 $\pm$ 0.06 (stat.) $\pm$ 0.26 (sys.) $\pm$ 0.29 (cocktail). The enhancement factor exhibits weak centrality and $p_{\mathrm{T}}$ dependence in STAR's accessible kinematic regions, while the excess yield in this invariant-mass region as a function of the number of participating nucleons follows a power-law shape with a power of 1.44 $\pm$ 0.10. Models that assume an in-medium broadening of the $\rho$ meson spectral function consistently describe the observed excess in these measurements. Additionally, we report on measurements of $\omega$ and $\varphi$-meson production through their $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ decay channel. These measurements show good agreement with Tsallis Blast-Wave model predictions as well as, in the case of the $\varphi$-meson, results through its $K^{+}{K}^{-}$ decay channel. In the intermediate invariant-mass region (1.1$<M_{ee}<$ 3 GeV/$c^2$), we investigate the spectral shapes from different collision centralities. Physics implications for possible in-medium modification of charmed hadron production and other physics sources are discussed.

40 pages, 49 figures

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