Electromagnetic probes as signatures for a first-order QCD phase transition

Mohamad Lukman Aidid Mohd Yusoff; Norhasliza Yusof; Hasan Abu Kassim; Jan Steinheimer; Marcus Bleicher; Apiwit Kittiratpattana; Ayut Limphirat; Christoph Herold

arXiv · 2510.05565

Electromagnetic probes as signatures for a first-order QCD phase transition

Mohamad Lukman Aidid Mohd Yusoff·Norhasliza Yusof·Hasan Abu Kassim·Jan Steinheimer·Marcus Bleicher·Apiwit Kittiratpattana·Ayut Limphirat·Christoph Herold

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Abstract

We investigate dimuon production in the context of a first-order phase transition in QCD matter using a chiral fluid dynamics model. This approach incorporates non-equilibrium effects such as entropy production and reheating, which emerge during the dynamical evolution through a first-order phase transition. By comparing equilibrium and non-equilibrium scenarios across a range of beam energies ($\sqrt{s_{NN}}=2.2-6.2$~GeV), we analyze the resulting invariant mass spectra. Our results reveal a substantial enhancement of dilepton yields in the non-equilibrium scenario, particularly pronounced at lower beam energies, where reheating leads to a prolonged lifetime of the fireball and increased emission. The enhancement persists even after normalizing to pion multiplicities, indicating sensitivity beyond effects of entropy production.

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Mohamad Lukman Aidid Mohd Yusoff, Norhasliza Yusof, Hasan Abu Kassim, Jan Steinheimer, Marcus Bleicher, Apiwit Kittiratpattana, Ayut Limphirat, Christoph Herold. 2025-10-07. Electromagnetic probes as signatures for a first-order QCD phase transition. https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.05565

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