Beam energy and centrality dependence of direct-photon emission from ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions

Adare, A.*; 長谷川 勝一; 今井 憲一; 永宮 正治*; 佐甲 博之; 佐藤 進; 谷田 聖; PHENIX Collaboration*; 他666名*

Physical Review Letters, 123(2), p.022301_1 - 022301_10, 2019/07

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.022301

The PHENIX collaboration presents first measurements of low-momentum (0.4 3 GeV/) direct-photon yields from AuAu collisions at = 39 and 62.4 GeV. For both beam energies the direct-photon yields are substantially enhanced with respect to expectations from prompt processes, similar to the yields observed in AuAu collisions at = 200. Analyzing the photon yield as a function of the experimental observable reveals that the low-momentum (1 GeV/) direct-photon yield is a smooth function of and can be well described as proportional to with 1.25. This new scaling behavior holds for a wide range of beam energies at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and Large Hadron Collider, for centrality selected samples, as well as for different, collision systems. At a given beam energy the scaling also holds for high (5 GeV/) but when results from different collision energies are compared, an additional -dependent multiplicative factor is needed to describe the integrated-direct-photon yield.