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# Photon Production from Nonequilibrium Disoriented Chiral Condensates in a Spherical Expansion

(August 2002)

## Abstract

We study the production of photons through the non-equilibrium relaxation of a disoriented chiral condensate formed in the expanding hot central region in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions. It is found that the expansion smoothes out the resonances in the process of parametric amplification such that the non-equilibrium photons are dominant to the thermal photons over the range 0.2-2 GeV. We propose that to search for non-equilibrium photons in the direct photon measurements of heavy-ion collisions can be a potential test of the formation of disoriented chiral condensates.

In relativistic heavy ion collisions, the highly Lorentz contracted nuclei essentially pass through each other, leaving behind a hot plasma in the central rapidity region with large energy density corresponding to temperature above $`200\mathrm{MeV}`$ where the chiral symmetry is restored. This plasma then cools down via rapid hydrodynamic expansion through the chiral phase transition during which the long-wavelength fluctuations become unstable and grow due to the spinoidal instabilities wilczek ; cooper ; boydcc . The growth of these unstable modes results in the formation of disoriented chiral condensates (DCCs) (see also Refs. bjorken1 ; dcc ). The DCCs are the correlated regions of space-time where the chiral order parameter of QCD is chirally rotated from its usual orientation in isospin space. Subsequent relaxation of the DCCs to the true QCD vacuum is expected to radiate copious soft pions which could be a potential experimental signature of the chiral phase transition observable in the ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions at RHIC and LHC although such a signature has been looked for and not seen in the lower energy heavy ion collisions at the CERN SPS agg . However, since these emitted pions will undergo the strong final interaction, the signal may be severely masked and become indistinguishable from the background. It then becomes important to study other possible signatures of DCCs that would be less affected by the final state interaction. Electromagnetic probe such as photon and lepton with longer mean free path in the medium serves as a good candidate and can reveal more detailed non-equilibrium information on the DCCs with minimal distortion wang ; boy1 ; boy2 .

Minakawa and Muller muller  have suggested that the presence of strong electromagnetic fields in relativistic heavy ion collisions induces a quasi-instantaneous “kick” to the field configuration along the $`\pi ^0`$ direction such that it is plausible that the chiral order parameter in the DCC domains, if formed, will acquire a component in the direction of the neutral pion. The production of photons through the non-equilibrium relaxation of a DCC within which the chiral order parameter initially has a non-vanishing expectation value along the $`\pi ^0`$ direction and subsequently oscillates around the minimum of the effective potential has been considered. In Ref. boy2 , Boyanovsky et al. have extensively studied the photon production from the low energy coupling of the neutral pion to photon via the $`\mathrm{U}_\mathrm{A}(1)`$ anomalous vertex. They have found that for large initial amplitudes of the $`\pi ^0`$ field photon production is enhanced by parametric amplification. These processes are non-perturbative with a large contribution during the non-equilibrium stages of the evolution and result in a distinct distribution of the produced photons. Later, the authors in Ref. leeng  have taken into account another dominant contribution that also involves the dynamics of $`\pi ^0`$ due to the decay of the vector meson through the electromagnetic vertex. Although the corresponding dimensionless effective coupling involving the vector meson is quite perturbatively small, for the large amplitude oscillations of the $`\pi ^0`$ mean field, the contribution to the photon production is of the same order of magnitude as the anomalous interaction. However, they have ignored the hydrodynamical expansion and adopted the simple “quench” phase transition from an initial thermodynamic equilibrium state at a temperature ($`T_i`$) higher than the critical temperature ($`T_c`$) for the chiral phase transition cooled instantaneously to zero temperature, which has been widely used in the study of non-equilibrium phenomena of DCCs boydcc ; wang ; boy1 ; boy2 .

In this paper, we will consider the effect of the hydrodynamical expansion of the plasma to the production of photons from the non-equilibrium relaxation of a DCC. Although the “quench” scenario can capture the qualitative features of this non-equilibrium problem, we will see that the dynamics of parametric amplification as well as spinoidal instabilities is considerably modified by the plasma expansion. In fact, our study of the photon production based upon this strongly out-of-equilibrium scenario bears analogy to the recent studies in the context of the off-shell photon production from the out-of-equilibrium expanding quark-gluon plasma with a finite life time wbn . To make a comparison, we also compute the thermal equilibrium photon emission from the hot quark-gluon plasma as well as the hadronic matter following an adiabatic quark-gluon phase transition by convoluting the equilibrium photon production rates at finite temperature with the expansion dynamics.

In ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions, it is expected that the rapidity density of the particles produced in the hot central region has a plateau. This implies an approximate Lorentz boost invariance along the longitudinal direction in the evolution of the hot plasma in the central region bjor . However, at late times following the heavy nuclei collisions, a transverse flow can be generated due to the multi-scattering between the produced particles, as such the expansion becomes three dimensional soll . Here we will simply assume that the hydrodynamical flow is spherically symmetric, and that the boost is along the radial direction. We will see that this assumption greatly simplifies the treatment of the photon field in the expanding space-time. We consider this as the first simplest attempt to tackle the problem.

The natural coordinates for spherical boost invariant hydrodynamical flow are the proper time $`\tau `$ and the space-time rapidity $`\eta `$ defined as

$$\tau (t^2r^2)^{\frac{1}{2}},\eta \frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{t+r}{tr}\right),$$
(1)
where $`(t,\stackrel{}{r})`$ are the coordinates in the laboratory,

$$t=\tau \mathrm{cosh}\eta ,r=\tau \mathrm{sinh}\eta .$$
(2)
The ranges of these coordinates are set to be $`0\tau <\mathrm{}`$ and $`0\eta <\mathrm{}`$, restricted to the forward light cone. In terms of spherical coordinates, the Minkowski line element is given by

$`ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`dt^2d\stackrel{}{r}^2`$ (3)
$`=`$ $`d\tau ^2\tau ^2(d\eta ^2+\mathrm{sinh}^2\eta d\theta ^2+\mathrm{sinh}^2\eta \mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\varphi ^2).`$ (4)
Eq. (4) is the Robertson-Walker metric for an open expanding universe with the scale factor $`R(\tau )=\tau `$ wein . For $`\eta <1`$, the open metric (4) can be approximated by the flat Robertson-Walker metric,

$`ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`d\tau ^2\tau ^2(d\eta ^2+\eta ^2d\theta ^2+\eta ^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\varphi ^2),`$ (5)
$`=`$ $`d\tau ^2\tau ^2d\stackrel{}{\eta }^2.`$
This flat metric will serve as the background comoving frame under which to study non-equilibrium photon production from DCC domains. This is a good first-order approximation since the boost invariance is in anyway applied only for small values of $`\eta `$. Furthermore, $`\eta <1`$ corresponds to the space-time with $`r/t<0.76`$ which has covered a major portion of the forward light cone.

The relevant phenomenological effective action in a general expanding space-time is given by

$$S=d^4x\sqrt{g}\left(L_\sigma +L_A+L_{\pi ^0A}\right),$$
(6)
where

$`L_\sigma `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g^{\mu \nu }_\mu \stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Phi }}_\nu \stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Phi }}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{M_\sigma ^2}{2}}\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Phi }}\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Phi }}\lambda \left(\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Phi }}\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Phi }}\right)^2+h\sigma ,`$ (7)
$`L_A`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}g^{\alpha \mu }g^{\beta \nu }F_{\alpha \beta }F_{\mu \nu },`$ (8)
$`L_{\pi ^0A}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}}{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{32\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^0}{f_\pi }}ϵ^{\alpha \beta \mu \nu }F_{\alpha \beta }F_{\mu \nu }+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(\sqrt{g})^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{e^2\lambda _V^2}{8m_\pi ^2m_V^2}}ϵ^{\mu \nu \lambda \sigma }ϵ^{\alpha \beta \gamma \delta }g_{\sigma \delta }_\lambda \pi ^0_\gamma \pi ^0F_{\mu \nu }F_{\alpha \beta },`$ (9)
where $`F_{\mu \nu }=_\mu A_\nu _\nu A_\mu `$ is the photon field, and $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Phi }}=(\sigma ,\pi ^0,\stackrel{}{\pi })`$ is an $`O(N+1)`$ vector of scalar fields with $`\stackrel{}{\pi }=(\pi ^1,\pi ^2,\mathrm{},\pi ^{N1})`$ representing the $`N1`$ pions. Note that the signature is $`(+++)`$, and we have added $`1/\sqrt{g}`$ to each $`ϵ^{\alpha \beta \mu \nu }`$ because it is a tensor density of weight $`1`$ wein . The phenomenological parameters in the effective Lagrangian above can be determined by the low-energy pion physics as follows:

$`m_\sigma 600\mathrm{MeV},f_\pi 93\mathrm{MeV},\lambda 4.5,T_c200\mathrm{MeV},`$
$`h(120\mathrm{MeV})^3,m_V782\mathrm{MeV},\lambda _V0.36,`$ (10)
where $`V`$ is identified as the $`\omega `$ meson, and the coupling $`\lambda _V`$ is obtained from the $`\omega \pi ^0\gamma `$ decay width davi . This effective action has been obtained by two of us leeng  in the study of out-of-equilibrium photon production from DCC domains by taking the rapid ”quench” phase transition scenario. Here we will consider the similar non-equilibrium phenomena taking account of the hydrodynamical expansion. It must be noticed that this is an effective field theory with an ultraviolet momentum cutoff of the order of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }1`$GeV. The effective vertices obtained are in terms of the perturbative theory without involving in-medium modifications. In-medium effects will enter only through the non-equilibrium Green’s functions for the meson fields as we will see below. To obtain these effective vertices including the strongly out of equilibrium effects, one should integrate out the quark fields and the vector meson in the context of the fully non-equilibrium formalism. It deserves to tackle in the near future.

It is well known that the minimal coupling of photons to the metric background is conformally invariant. Thus, in the conformally flat metric (5), it is convenient to work with the conformal time defined by

$$du\tau _i\frac{d\tau }{\tau },$$
(11)
where $`\tau _i`$ is the initial proper time after which we expect that the quark-gluon plasma is formed and thermalized. Integration gives

$$u=\tau _i\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{\tau }{\tau _i}\right).$$
(12)
Rewrite the flat metric (5) as

$$ds^2=g_{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu =a^2(u)(du^2d\stackrel{}{x}^2),$$
(13)
where $`a(u)=\tau /\tau _i=e^{u/\tau _i}`$ and $`d\stackrel{}{x}=\tau _id\stackrel{}{\eta }`$. Writing explicitly in terms of the comoving coordinates and defining $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Phi }}=\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Phi }}_a/a`$, the action (6) becomes

$$S=𝑑ud^3\stackrel{}{x}=𝑑ud^3\stackrel{}{x}\left(_\sigma +_A+_{\pi ^0A}\right),$$
(14)
where

$`_\sigma `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\eta ^{\mu \nu }_\mu \stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Phi }}_a_\nu \stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Phi }}_a+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}a^2M_\sigma ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^2a}{du^2}}\right]\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Phi }}_a\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Phi }}_a\lambda \left(\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Phi }}_a\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Phi }}_a\right)^2+a^3h\sigma _a,`$ (15)
$`_A`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\eta ^{\alpha \mu }\eta ^{\beta \nu }F_{\alpha \beta }F_{\mu \nu },`$ (16)
$`_{\pi ^0A}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{32\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi _a^0}{af_\pi }}ϵ^{\alpha \beta \mu \nu }F_{\alpha \beta }F_{\mu \nu }+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{e^2\lambda _V^2}{8m_\pi ^2m_V^2}}ϵ^{\mu \nu \lambda \sigma }ϵ^{\alpha \beta \gamma \delta }\eta _{\sigma \delta }_\lambda \left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi _a^0}{a}}\right)_\gamma \left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi _a^0}{a}}\right)F_{\mu \nu }F_{\alpha \beta },`$ (17)
where $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Phi }}_a=(\sigma _a,\pi _a^0,\stackrel{}{\pi }_a)`$ and $`\eta ^{\mu \nu }`$ is the Minkowski metric. In terms of the conformal time, the effective action now has analogy with the effective action in Minkowski spacetime with the time dependent mass term and interactions.

The dynamics of the non-equilibrium expectation values as well as correlation functions of quantum fields can be obtained by implementing the Schwinger-Keldysh closed-time-path formulation of non-equilibrium quantum field theory. This formulation is used to describe the evolution of an initially prepared density matrix, and requires a path integral defined along a closed time contour. This techniques have successfully been employed elsewhere within many different contexts and we refer the readers to the literature for details boyneq . Here we first shift $`\sigma _a`$ and $`\pi _a^0`$ by their expectation values with respect to an initial non-equilibrium states:

$`\sigma _a(\stackrel{}{x},u)=\varphi _a(u)+\chi _a(\stackrel{}{x},u),\sigma _a(\stackrel{}{x},u)=\varphi _a(u),`$ (18)
$`\pi _a^0(\stackrel{}{x},u)=\zeta _a(u)+\psi _a(\stackrel{}{x},u),\pi _a^0(\stackrel{}{x},u)=\zeta _a(u),`$ (19)
with the tadpole conditions:

$$\chi _a(\stackrel{}{x},u)=0,\psi _a(\stackrel{}{x},u)=0,\stackrel{}{\pi }_a(\stackrel{}{x},u)=0.$$
(20)
One can impose these tadpole conditions to all orders in the corresponding expansion to derive the non-equilibrium evolution equations of field expectation values. In addition, the large-$`N`$ approximation will be implemented below (Eqs. (2.7)-(2.9) of Ref. boy2 ) to obtain the factorized Lagrangian which provides a non-perturbative framework to self-consistently incorporate quantum fluctuation effects from the strong $`\sigma \pi `$ interactions. As for the issue of the gauge choice, we adopt here the Coulomb gauge which involves only the physical degrees of freedom without any redundant fields to study non-equilibrium photon production from the oscillating mean fields within the DCC domains in a spherical expansion.

Using the tadpole conditions (20), the large-$`N`$ equations of motion for the mean fields involving the perturbatively electromagnetic corrections can be obtained as follows:

$`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{d^2}{du^2}}+m_a^2(u)+4\lambda \varphi _a^2(u)+4\lambda \zeta _a^2(u)+4\lambda \stackrel{}{\pi }_a^2(u)\right]\varphi _aa^3h=0,`$
$`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{d^2}{du^2}}+m_a^2(u)+4\lambda \varphi _a^2(u)+4\lambda \zeta _a^2(u)+4\lambda \stackrel{}{\pi }_a^2(u)\right]\zeta _a{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{32\pi ^2f_\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a}}F\stackrel{~}{F}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{e^2\lambda _V^2}{4m_\pi ^2m_V^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{du}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{du}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\zeta _a}{a}}\right)\right]ϵ^{\mu \nu 0\sigma }ϵ^{\alpha \beta 0\delta }\eta _{\sigma \delta }F_{\mu \nu }F_{\alpha \beta }`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{e^2\lambda _V^2}{4m_\pi ^2m_V^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{du}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\zeta _a}{a}}\right)ϵ^{\mu \nu 0\sigma }ϵ^{\alpha \beta \gamma \delta }\eta _{\sigma \delta }_\gamma F_{\mu \nu }F_{\alpha \beta }=0.`$ (21)
We then decompose the fields $`\stackrel{}{\pi }_a`$ and $`\stackrel{}{A}_T`$ into their Fourier mode functions $`U_{a\stackrel{}{k}}(u)`$ and $`V_{\lambda \stackrel{}{k}}(u)`$ respectively,

$`\stackrel{}{\pi }_a(\stackrel{}{x},u)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^3\stackrel{}{k}}{\sqrt{2(2\pi )^3\omega _{\stackrel{}{\pi }_a\stackrel{}{k},i}}}}[\stackrel{}{a}_\stackrel{}{k}U_{a\stackrel{}{k}}(u)e^{i\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{x}}+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.],`$ (22)
$`\stackrel{}{A}_T(\stackrel{}{x},u)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^3\stackrel{}{k}}{\sqrt{2(2\pi )^3\omega _{A\stackrel{}{k},i}}}\stackrel{}{A}_T(\stackrel{}{k},u)}`$ (23)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^3\stackrel{}{k}}{\sqrt{2(2\pi )^3\omega _{A\stackrel{}{k},i}}}}\{[b_{+\stackrel{}{k}}V_{1\stackrel{}{k}}(u)\stackrel{}{ϵ}_{+\stackrel{}{k}}+b_\stackrel{}{k}V_{2\stackrel{}{k}}(u)\stackrel{}{ϵ}_\stackrel{}{k}]e^{i\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{x}}+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.\},`$
where $`\stackrel{}{a}_\stackrel{}{k}`$ and $`b_{\pm \stackrel{}{k}}`$ are destruction operators, and $`\stackrel{}{ϵ}_{\pm \stackrel{}{k}}`$ are circular polarization unit vectors. The frequencies $`\omega _{\stackrel{}{\pi }_a\stackrel{}{k},i}`$ and $`\omega _{A\stackrel{}{k},i}`$ can be determined from the initial states and will be specified below. The mode equations for the photons as well as the pions can be read off from the quadratic part of the effective factorized Lagrangian as

$`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{d^2}{du^2}}+k^2+m_a^2(u)+4\lambda \varphi _a^2(u)+4\lambda \zeta _a^2(u)+4\lambda \stackrel{}{\pi }_a^2(u)\right]U_{ak}=0,`$ (24)
$`\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{d^2}{du^2}}+\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{e^2\lambda _V^2}{m_\pi ^2m_V^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{\zeta }^2}{a^2}}\right]k^2{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{2\pi ^2f_\pi }}\dot{\zeta }k\right\}V_{1k}=0,`$ (25)
$`\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{d^2}{du^2}}+\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{e^2\lambda _V^2}{m_\pi ^2m_V^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{\zeta }^2}{a^2}}\right]k^2+{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{2\pi ^2f_\pi }}\dot{\zeta }k\right\}V_{2k}=0,`$ (26)
where $`m_a^2(u)=(1/2)a^2M_\sigma ^2\ddot{a}/a`$, $`\zeta (u)=\zeta _a(u)/a`$, $`k=|\stackrel{}{k}|`$, and the dot means $`d/du`$. The expectation values with respective to the initial states are given by

$`\stackrel{}{\pi }_a^2(u)`$ $`=`$ $`(N1){\displaystyle ^{\mathrm{\Lambda }a(u)}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3\stackrel{}{k}}{2(2\pi )^3\omega _{\stackrel{}{\pi }_ak}}}\left[|U_{ak}(u)|^2\right]\mathrm{coth}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\omega _{\stackrel{}{\pi }_ak}}{2T_i}}\right],`$
$`ϵ^{\alpha \beta \mu \nu }F_{\alpha \beta }F_{\mu \nu }(u)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle ^{\mathrm{\Lambda }a(u)}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3\stackrel{}{k}}{2(2\pi )^3\omega _{Ak}}}(4k){\displaystyle \frac{d}{du}}\left[|V_{2k}(u)|^2|V_{1k}(u)|^2\right],`$
$`ϵ^{\mu \nu 0\sigma }ϵ^{\alpha \beta 0\delta }\eta _{\sigma \delta }F_{\mu \nu }F_{\alpha \beta }(u)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle ^{\mathrm{\Lambda }a(u)}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3\stackrel{}{k}}{2(2\pi )^3\omega _{Ak}}}(4k^2)\left[|V_{1k}(u)|^2+|V_{2k}(u)|^2\right],`$
$`ϵ^{\mu \nu 0\sigma }ϵ^{\alpha \beta \gamma \delta }\eta _{\sigma \delta }_\gamma F_{\mu \nu }F_{\alpha \beta }(u)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle ^{\mathrm{\Lambda }a(u)}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3\stackrel{}{k}}{2(2\pi )^3\omega _{Ak}}}(4k^2){\displaystyle \frac{d}{du}}\left[|V_{1k}(u)|^2+|V_{2k}(u)|^2\right],`$ (27)
where $`\stackrel{}{\pi }_a^2(u)`$ is self-consistently determined by Eq. (24). In particular, when $`u=0`$, it becomes the gap equation,

$$\stackrel{}{\pi }_a^2(0)=(N1)^\mathrm{\Lambda }\frac{d^3\stackrel{}{k}}{2(2\pi )^3\omega _{\stackrel{}{\pi }_ak,i}}\mathrm{coth}\left[\frac{\omega _{\stackrel{}{\pi }_ak,i}}{2T_i}\right].$$
(28)
Notice that the photonic medium effects have been ignored in the above expressions of the photon field expectation values due to the fact that the photons interact electromagnetically so that their mean free paths are expected to be longer than the estimated size of the quark-gluon plasma fireball, and the produced photons will escape freely toward the particle detector having no enough time to build up their population in the plasma. In this conformal frame, the momentum cutoff we choose depends linearly on $`a`$ so as to keep the physical momentum cutoff $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ fixed in the laboratory frame. As a result, the initial conditions for the mode functions become more subtle here. Here we choose

$`U_{ak<\mathrm{\Lambda }}(0)=1,\dot{U}_{ak<\mathrm{\Lambda }}(0)=i\omega _{\stackrel{}{\pi }_ak,i},`$
$`\omega _{\stackrel{}{\pi }_ak,i}^2=k^2+m_a^2(0)+4\lambda \varphi _a^2(0)+4\lambda \zeta _a^2(0)+4\lambda \stackrel{}{\pi }_a^2(0);`$
$`V_{1,2k<\mathrm{\Lambda }}(0)=1,\dot{V}_{1,2k<\mathrm{\Lambda }}(0)=i\omega _{Ak,i},\omega _{Ak,i}=k;`$ (29)
$`U_{ak>\mathrm{\Lambda }}(u_k)=1,\dot{U}_{ak>\mathrm{\Lambda }}(u_k)=i\omega _{\stackrel{}{\pi }_ak,i},`$
$`\omega _{\stackrel{}{\pi }_ak,i}^2=k^2+m_a^2(u_k)+4\lambda \varphi _a^2(u_k)+4\lambda \zeta _a^2(u_k)+4\lambda \stackrel{}{\pi }_a^2(u_k);`$
$`V_{1,2k>\mathrm{\Lambda }}(u_k)=1,\dot{V}_{1,2k>\mathrm{\Lambda }}(u_k)=i\omega _{Ak,i},\omega _{Ak,i}=k.`$ (30)
Therefore, for the momentum lying below the momentum cutoff $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ at the initial conformal time, the initial condition for the mode function can be set at $`u=0`$ as shown in Eq. (29). However, for the momentum above the cutoff momentum $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ at $`u=0`$, it will become dynamical when $`k\mathrm{\Lambda }a(u)`$ after $`u=u_k=\tau _i\mathrm{ln}(k/\mathrm{\Lambda })`$, and the initial condition for this mode function must be set at that conformal time $`u_k`$ as in Eq. (30). The photon spectral number density at time $`u`$ is given by the expectation value of the number operator for the asymptotic photons boy2 ,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dN}{d^3\stackrel{}{x}d^3\stackrel{}{k}}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{dN_+}{d^3\stackrel{}{x}d^3\stackrel{}{k}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{dN_{}}{d^3\stackrel{}{x}d^3\stackrel{}{k}}}`$ (31)
$`=`$ $`𝐍_k(u)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2k}}\left[\dot{\stackrel{}{A}_T}(\stackrel{}{k},u)\dot{\stackrel{}{A}_T}(\stackrel{}{k},u)+k^2\stackrel{}{A}_T(\stackrel{}{k},u)\stackrel{}{A}_T(\stackrel{}{k},u)\right]1`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4k^2}}\left[|\dot{V}_{1k}(u)|^2+k^2|V_{1k}(u)|^2\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4k^2}}\left[|\dot{V}_{2k}(u)|^2+k^2|V_{2k}(u)|^2\right]1,`$
and the invariant photon spectral production rate is given by boy2 ; leeng

$$\frac{kdN}{dud^3\stackrel{}{x}d^3\stackrel{}{k}}=\frac{1}{4}\left\{\frac{e^2\lambda _V^2}{m_\pi ^2m_V^2}\frac{\dot{\zeta }^2}{a^2}k\frac{d}{du}\left[|V_{1k}|^2+|V_{2k}|^2\right]+\frac{e^2}{2\pi ^2f_\pi }\dot{\zeta }\frac{d}{du}\left[|V_{1k}|^2|V_{2k}|^2\right]\right\}.$$
(32)
We now need to relate this spectral production rate to the invariant production rate measured in the metric (3) in order to obtain the photon spectrum in the laboratory frame. From the coordinate transformations (2), we find that

$`q`$ $`=`$ $`p\mathrm{cosh}\eta +p_r\mathrm{sinh}\eta ,`$
$`q_\eta `$ $`=`$ $`p\tau \mathrm{sinh}\eta +p_r\tau \mathrm{cosh}\eta ,`$
$`q_\theta `$ $`=`$ $`p_\theta ,`$
$`q_\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`p_\varphi ,`$ (33)
and the zero-mass condition of the photon, i.e., $`g^{\mu \nu }p_\mu p_\nu =0`$,

$`q`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{|\stackrel{}{q}|}{\tau }}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\tau }}\left(q_\eta ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{sinh}^2\eta }}q_\theta ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{sinh}^2\eta \mathrm{sin}^2\theta }}q_\varphi ^2\right)^{\frac{1}{2}},`$
$`p`$ $`=`$ $`|\stackrel{}{p}|=\left(p_r^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r^2}}p_\theta ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta }}p_\varphi ^2\right)^{\frac{1}{2}},`$ (34)
where $`q_\mu =(q,\stackrel{}{q})`$ is the photon four-momentum in the metric (4) and $`p_\mu =(p,\stackrel{}{p})`$ is that measured in the laboratory frame. Because of the spherical symmetry of the problem, for convenience, we can choose $`\stackrel{}{p}`$ to be along the $`z`$-axis, which is also the polar axis. This gives $`p_r=p\mathrm{cos}\theta `$, and then from Eq. (33),

$$q=p(\mathrm{cosh}\eta +\mathrm{cos}\theta \mathrm{sinh}\eta ).$$
(35)
Hence, from the momentum transformation laws (33), one can change the momentum variables from $`q_\mu `$ into $`p_\mu `$ in the invariant production rate making use of the fact that the spectral particle number density $`dN`$ is invariant under such transformations. We then find that

$$\frac{dN}{d\mathrm{\Gamma }}=\frac{qdN}{dq_\eta dq_\theta dq_\varphi d\tau d\eta d\theta d\varphi }=\frac{pdN}{d^3\stackrel{}{p}\tau ^3\mathrm{sinh}^2\eta \mathrm{sin}\theta d\tau d\eta d\theta d\varphi },$$
(36)
where $`d\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ stands for the invariant phase space element in the comoving frame. Therefore, the photon spectrum measured in the laboratory at the final time $`\tau _f`$ can be obtained by integrating the invariant spectral production rate over the space-time history of the hydrodynamical evolution in the comoving frame as

$$\frac{pdN}{d^3\stackrel{}{p}}=_{\tau _i}^{\tau _f}𝑑\tau _0^{\eta _{\mathrm{max}}}𝑑\eta _0^\pi 𝑑\theta _0^{2\pi }𝑑\varphi \tau ^3\mathrm{sinh}^2\eta \mathrm{sin}\theta \frac{dN}{d\mathrm{\Gamma }}(\tau ,q),$$
(37)
where $`q=p(\mathrm{cosh}\eta +\mathrm{cos}\theta \mathrm{sinh}\eta )`$. Now, in the small $`\eta `$ approximation, one can link the invariant rate in the comoving frame to that of the conformal frame as given in Eq. (32), where $`k=q\tau /\tau _i`$ and $`\stackrel{}{k}=\stackrel{}{q}/\tau _i`$, in the following way:

$$\frac{dN}{d\mathrm{\Gamma }}\frac{qdN}{d\tau d^3\stackrel{}{\eta }d^3\stackrel{}{q}}\left(\frac{\tau _i}{\tau }\right)^2\frac{kdN}{dud^3\stackrel{}{x}d^3\stackrel{}{k}},$$
(38)
where $`u=\tau _i\mathrm{ln}(\tau /\tau _i)`$. Then, we can approximate

$`{\displaystyle \frac{pdN}{d^3\stackrel{}{p}}}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle _{\tau _i}^{\tau _f}}𝑑\tau {\displaystyle _0^{\eta _{\mathrm{max}}}}𝑑\eta {\displaystyle _0^\pi }𝑑\theta {\displaystyle _0^{2\pi }}𝑑\varphi \tau ^2\tau _i\mathrm{sinh}^2\eta \mathrm{sin}\theta {\displaystyle \frac{kdN}{dud\stackrel{}{x}d\stackrel{}{k}}}(u,k)`$ (39)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi \tau _i^2}{p}}{\displaystyle _{\tau _i}^{\tau _f}}𝑑\tau {\displaystyle _{\tau pe^{\eta _{\mathrm{max}}}/\tau _i}^{\tau pe^{\eta _{\mathrm{max}}}/\tau _i}}𝑑k\left[\mathrm{cosh}(\eta _{\mathrm{max}}){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{k}{p}}{\displaystyle \frac{\tau _i}{\tau }}+{\displaystyle \frac{p}{k}}{\displaystyle \frac{\tau }{\tau _i}}\right)\right]{\displaystyle \frac{kdN}{dud^3\stackrel{}{x}d^3\stackrel{}{k}}}(u,k).`$
The final expression is obtained after changing the integration variable from $`\theta `$ to $`k`$ as well as carrying out the $`\varphi `$\- and $`\eta `$\- integrals.

In contrast with the non-equilibrium photon production from the DCC domains, the equilibrium photon emission arising from an expanding quark-gluon plasma (QGP) as well as hadronic matter can be obtained by convoluting the equilibrium photon production rates at finite temperature with the expansion dynamics. We currently believe that after the ultra-relativistic heavy collisions, in the central rapidity regime, parton-parton multi-scatterings cause the produced quarks and gluons to reach local thermal equilibrium at the time scale of $`\tau _i`$, and then the so-called QGP with high energy/entropy density is expected to be formed. After the formation of a QGP, the dynamics of the thermal plasma is dominated by the hydrodynamical expansion. The hydrodynamical approach is appropriate since in this stage quarks and gluons interact in such a dense regime that their mean free paths are much smaller than typical wavelengths of various collective phenomena. Subsequently, the plasma cools adiabatically according to the equation of state of a hot QGP down to the quark-hadron phase transition when the QGP starts to hadronize. Assuming that the phase transition is a first order one, quarks, gluons, and hadrons will coexist in a mixed phase in which the released latent heat keeps the temperature of the plasma unchanged at the critical temperature even though the plasma continues to expand. This mixed phase will exist until all the matter has converted into the hadrons. The system in the hadronic phase will continuously expand with the dynamics governed by the equation of state of a hot hadron gas. As a result, the temperature continuously drops till the so-called freeze-out temperature is reached where the mean free path for all hadrons is of the order of the size of the plasma, and after that all hadrons cease further interactions. We would like to emphasize at this stage that according to such a hydrodynamical picture, the strongly out of equilibrium scenario of either supercooling or superheating has been ignored in the sense that the entropy of the system is assumed to be locally conserved for the whole evolving history of the system. Therefore, photon emission under this adiabatic expansion is in striking contrast with that from the DCC domains associated with a strongly out of equilibrium scenario. In the Bjorken’s hydrodynamical model, the QGP as well as hadronic matter can be described as a fluid in local thermal equilibrium. The energy density, pressure, entropy etc. will depend on the proper time only, and will not depend on the space-time rapidity under the assumption of a boost invariance in the central rapidity region. The dynamics of the fluid is determined by the conservation laws of the energy-momentum, baryon number, and entropy. In addition, an equation of state of the fluid in the various phases can serve as an input to close this set of dynamical equations to be solved self-consistently. Here, to be consistent with the calculation of the non-equilibrium photon production from DCC domains, we also assume that the underlying hydrodynamical expansion is of a spherical expansion with the coordinates of the proper time $`\tau `$ and the space-time rapidity $`\eta `$ that results from free-streaming particles with a collective velocity $`v=r/t`$ along the radial direction, where the fluid rapidity is equal to the space-time rapidity. In the central rapidity region which is baryon free, the conservation law of entropy for such an adiabatic expansion reads

$$s(T)\tau ^3=s(T_i)\tau _i^3.$$
(40)
This conservation law will play an important role in determining the cooling law as well as the duration time scales of various phases of the evolving system from the initial QGP phase, to the quark-hadron mixed phase, and to the final hadronic phase.

In the QGP phase, the entropy density is dominated by the relativistic massless gas composed of quarks and gluons given by

$$s_Q=\frac{2\pi ^2}{45}g_GT^3,$$
(41)
where the degeneracy $`g_G=(28+2232\frac{7}{8})`$ for the two-flavor quarks and the eight SU(3) gluons. On the other hand, the entropy density of hadronic matter is taken as

$$s_H=\frac{2\pi ^2}{45}g_H(T)T^3,$$
(42)
where $`g_H(T)`$ is an effective degeneracy for a hadron gas. We introduce a temperature dependence in this effective degeneracy to account for the medium effects from the coupled hadron gas in the temperature regime of our interest. The variation of the effective degeneracy can be parametrized as $`g_H(T)13(T/\mathrm{fm}^1)^\delta `$ where the generally acceptable value of $`\delta `$ is about $`\delta 3.4`$ of slight model-dependence (here we adopt the Walecka model) alam . We are now in a position to determine the time scale in the QGP phase which starts from the initial formation time $`\tau _i`$ until $`\tau _Q`$ when the temperature drops to the critical temperature $`T_c`$ of the quark-hadron phase transition and a phase transition to hadronic matter starts. Following the conservation law of entropy together with an expression of $`s_Q`$ in Eq. (41), the cooling law in the QGP phase can be obtained as $`T=(\tau _i/\tau )T_i`$, and thus $`\tau _Q=(T_i/T_c)\tau _i`$. However, during the quark-hadron mixed phase, the relative proportion of QGP to hadronic matter must vary with time. Since the temperature of the quark-hadron mixed state remains constant at $`T=T_c`$ even though the plasma continuously expands, the entropy density of the mixed state is equal to the sum of the entropy densities of QGP and hadronic matter at $`T=T_c`$, $`s_Q^c`$ and $`s_H^c`$, respectively weighted by their fractions, $`f_Q(\tau )`$ and $`f_H(\tau )`$:

$$s_{mix}(\tau )=f_Q(\tau )s_Q^c+f_H(\tau )s_H^c,$$
(43)
where $`f_Q(\tau )+f_H(\tau )=1`$. Initially at $`\tau =\tau _Q`$, the phase consists entirely of QGP, i.e. $`f_Q(\tau _Q)=1`$ , and at the end, entirely of hadronic matter at $`\tau _H`$, i.e. $`f_H(\tau _H)=1`$. Thus, the life time of the mixed state is $`\tau _H\tau _Q`$. $`f_Q(\tau )`$, $`f_H(\tau )`$, and $`\tau _H`$ are to be determined from the entropy conservation law (40) which presumably also holds in the mixed state. Then, from Eqs. (43) and (40), we have

$$\left(f_Q(\tau )s_Q^c+[1f_Q(\tau )]s_H^c\right)\tau ^3=s_Q^c\tau _Q^3.$$
(44)
Hence, we obtain

$$f_Q(\tau )=\frac{s_Q^c\left(\frac{\tau _Q}{\tau }\right)^3s_H^c}{s_Q^cs_H^c},f_H(\tau )=1f_Q(\tau ).$$
(45)
Therefore, the mixed phase ends at $`\tau _H=(s_Q^c/s_H^c)^{1/3}\tau _Q`$ determined from $`f_Q(\tau _H)=0`$ above. As for the hadronic phase, substituting the associated entropy density of a hot hadron gas (42) into the entropy conservation law (40) can lead to the cooling law in this phase given by $`T=T_c(\tau _H/\tau )^{3/(\delta +3)}`$ from which the freeze-out time can be obtained as $`\tau _f=\tau _H(T_c/T_f)^{(\delta +3)/3}`$.

After having obtained all relevant duration time scales in various phases from the QGP phase to the hadronic phase, we now turn into the discussions of the photon production processes from the QGP and the hadronic phase. The calculation of the thermal photon production rates in the high energy regime $`(E>>T)`$ from the QGP at one-loop order in the hot thermal loop (HTL) approximation has been obtained by Kapusta et al. to account for the real photon production from the annihilation of a quark-antiquark pair into a photon and a gluon ($`q\overline{q}g\gamma `$) as well as the absorption of a gluon by a quark (antiquark) emitting a photon ($`q(\overline{q})gq(\overline{q})\gamma `$), similar to Compton scattering in QED kapu . However, the recent study by Aurenche et al. has shown that the two-loop contributions to the photon production under the HTL approximation from quark (antiquark) bremsstrahlung ( $`qq(g)qq(g)\gamma )`$, and quark-antiquark annihilation with scattering ( $`q\overline{q}q(g)q(g)\gamma `$) are of the same order of magnitude as that in one-loop order aure . Their contributions to the photon production rates prove to be dominant at high photon energies. Later, we will adopt this two-loop result (Eqs. (1,2,3) of Ref. steffen ) to calculate the equilibrium photon emission during the phases that involve the QGP. As for the photon production processes from the hadronic phase, it is known that the dominant processes in the energy regime of our interest are those of the reactions $`\pi \pi \rho \gamma ,\pi \rho \pi \gamma `$ as well as the decays $`\omega \pi \gamma ,\rho \pi \pi \gamma `$ nadeau . The reaction for producing photons that involves the intermediary axial vector meson $`a_1`$ is also important, for example, $`\pi \rho a_1\pi \gamma `$ xiong . All of these hadronic processes will be taken into account in the calculation of the equilibrium photon emission from the thermal hadrons. A point to be stressed is that we consider the photon production processes from the low-mass hadrons only while the higher mass resonances would be Boltzmann suppressed. We then use the invariant photon production rates either from the QGP or from the hadrons combining with the relevant cooling laws as well as their expansion dynamics to numerically obtain the total equilibrium photon emission for the whole evolution of the system. Notice that the equilibrium photon production invariant rates obtained in the literature alam ; peit  in the rest frame of the emitting matter can be expressed in terms of the comoving frame of a thermal bath with temperature being a function of the proper time $`\tau `$ under the adiabatic expansion. We can denote those invariant rates from the QGP and the hadron gas in the comoving frame respectively by $`dN/d\mathrm{\Gamma }_Q`$ and $`dN/d\mathrm{\Gamma }_H`$ that both depend on the photon four-momentum $`q_\mu `$ as well as the temperature $`T(\tau )`$ with $`\tau `$ dependence following their respective cooling laws. Finally, the equilibrium photon emission starting from the formation time $`\tau _i`$ down to the freeze-out time $`\tau _f`$ in the laboratory frame can be obtained by a Lorentz boost from the comoving frame to the center of mass frame. Thus it becomes with Eq. (37)

$`{\displaystyle \frac{pdN}{d^3\stackrel{}{p}}}={\displaystyle _{\tau _i}^{\tau _Q}}𝑑\tau {\displaystyle _0^{\eta _{\mathrm{max}}}}𝑑\eta {\displaystyle _0^\pi }𝑑\theta {\displaystyle _0^{2\pi }}𝑑\varphi \tau ^3\mathrm{sinh}^2\eta \mathrm{sin}\theta {\displaystyle \frac{dN}{d\mathrm{\Gamma }}}_Q\left(q,T=T_i{\displaystyle \frac{\tau _i}{\tau }}\right)`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\tau _Q}^{\tau _H}}𝑑\tau {\displaystyle _0^{\eta _{\mathrm{max}}}}𝑑\eta {\displaystyle _0^\pi }𝑑\theta {\displaystyle _0^{2\pi }}𝑑\varphi \tau ^3\mathrm{sinh}^2\eta \mathrm{sin}\theta \left(f_Q(\tau ){\displaystyle \frac{dN}{d\mathrm{\Gamma }}}_Q(q,T_c)+f_H(\tau ){\displaystyle \frac{dN}{d\mathrm{\Gamma }}}_H(q,T_c)\right)`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\tau _H}^{\tau _f}}𝑑\tau {\displaystyle _0^{\eta _{\mathrm{max}}}}𝑑\eta {\displaystyle _0^\pi }𝑑\theta {\displaystyle _0^{2\pi }}𝑑\varphi \tau ^3\mathrm{sinh}^2\eta \mathrm{sin}\theta {\displaystyle \frac{dN}{d\mathrm{\Gamma }}}_H\left(q,T=T_c\left({\displaystyle \frac{\tau _H}{\tau }}\right)^{\frac{3}{\delta +3}}\right),`$
where again $`q=p(\mathrm{cosh}\eta +\mathrm{cos}\theta \mathrm{sinh}\eta )`$ in Eq. (35).

We now perform the numerical study. We first solve the coupled differential equations Eq. (21), Eqs. (24-26), and the field expectation values Eq. (27) self-consistently with the initial conditions $`\zeta (0)=0.3\mathrm{fm}^1`$ and $`\dot{\zeta }(0)=\varphi (0)=\dot{\varphi }(0)=0`$ in the conformal time frame. The initial temperature $`T_i`$ at the QGP formation time $`\tau _i=1.0\mathrm{fm}^1`$ that corresponds to the initial conformal time $`u=0`$ is chosen to be $`T_i=1.0\mathrm{fm}^1`$. We set $`N=3`$ for 3 pions. In Figs. 1(a) and 1(b), we show that $`\zeta (u)`$ evolves with strong damping, while the amplitude of the field derivative $`\dot{\zeta }(u)`$ grows. The strong damping is due to the back-reaction effects from the creation of excitations of the quantum fluctuations via parametric amplification. This translates into photon production as we will discuss later. In fact, the growing $`\dot{\zeta }(u)`$ makes photon production become more effective. The spectra of emitted photons in the conformal time frame are depicted for $`u=1`$, $`1.5`$, and $`2\mathrm{fm}^1`$ respectively in Fig. 1(c). They feature prominent peaks. Notice that the peaks are located at $`k\omega _{\dot{\zeta }}/2`$ and $`k\omega _{\dot{\zeta }}`$, where $`\omega _{\dot{\zeta }}`$ is the time-averaged oscillation frequency of $`\dot{\zeta }`$ which can be read off from Fig. 1(b). Since $`\omega _{\dot{\zeta }}`$ increases with time, both of the peaks move towards the higher momenta as we can see from Fig. 1(c). Therefore, it is evident that the photon production is due to parametric amplification. Figs. 2(a), 2(b), and 2(c) are shown for a large initial amplitude $`\zeta (0)=1.0\mathrm{fm}^1`$ and $`\dot{\zeta }(0)=\varphi (0)=\dot{\varphi }(0)=0`$. This is clearly the non-perturbative effects driven by the parametric amplification which exhibits the features of unstable bands leading to the growth of the fluctuation modes. The growth of the fluctuations turns into the profuse photon production in the modes within the unstable bands. It is not surprising that with a large initial field expectation value, the peaks in the photon spectrum (Fig.2(c)) are about an order of magnitude larger than the previous case.

The photon spectrum in the laboratory frame emitted from the non-equilibrium DCC domains can be obtained by integrating the rates (32) over the spacetime history (39). To make the comparison, we calculate the thermal photon emission from the adiabatic quark-hadron phase transition in Eq. (LABEL:tplab) with the photon production rates for the processes discussed above. To do so, as for the non-equilibrium DCC case, we assume that the QGP is formed with temperature $`T_i=1.0\mathrm{fm}^1`$ at the formation time $`\tau _i=1.0\mathrm{fm}`$. In addition, the cooling law in the QGP phase, i.e. $`\tau =(T/T_i)\tau _i`$, gives the time scale $`\tau _Q=1.1\mathrm{fm}`$ when the QGP begins hadronizing and the subsequent quark-hadron mixed state is formed at the critical temperature assumed to be $`T_c=0.9\mathrm{fm}^1`$. One can also estimate the time when the mixed state ends, $`\tau _H=(s_Q^c/s_H^c)^{1/3}=1.77\mathrm{fm}`$, where the entropy densities are evaluated at $`T=T_c`$. In the final stage, the system turns into the hadronic phase starting at $`\tau _H`$ till the freeze-out time $`\tau _f=5.6\mathrm{fm}`$ estimated from the cooling law of the hadronic phase, $`\tau _f=\tau _H(T_c/T_f)^{(\delta +3)/3}`$, where $`\delta 3.4`$ alam  and the freeze-out temperature is chosen as $`T_f=0.5\mathrm{fm}^1`$.

Figs. 3(a), 3(b), and 3(c) display the photon emission in the laboratory frame from the non-equilibrium DCC domains (solid line for $`\zeta (0)=1.0\mathrm{fm}^1`$ and dashed line for $`\zeta (0)=0.3\mathrm{fm}^1`$) and the adiabatic evolution of the QGP phase down to the hadronic phase (dotted line) for the spacetime rapidity $`\eta =0.65`$, $`0.8`$, and $`1.0`$ respectively. In all three cases, our results indicate that the non-equilibrium photon emission from DCC domains for an initial value of the $`\pi ^0`$ component of an order parameter about $`1.0\mathrm{fm}^1`$ that undergoes large amplitude oscillations with respect to the minimum value of the effective action is an order of magnitude larger than the photon emission from the QGP to the hadronic phase through an adiabatic first order phase transition. On the other hand, for an initial value of the $`\pi ^0`$ below $`0.3\mathrm{fm}^1`$, due to small amplitude oscillations, the non-equilibrium DCC photon emission is not so effective as compared to the thermal photon emission. Therefore, we believe that if DCC domains are indeed formed, the nonlinear dynamics of the $`\pi ^0`$ oscillations can create an enormous amount of non-equilibrium photons from the DCC domains. These photon emission enhancement effects could potentially provide a distinct experimental signature. In addition, the emitted non-equilibrium photon spectra from DCC domains in a hydrodynamical expansion shown in Fig. 3 reveal the dramatically different features as compared with the results in Refs. boy2 ; leeng , where the authors have considered the similar non-equilibrium phenomena in the temperature quenching scenario without convoluting the photon production rate with the plasma expansion, and shown that prominent peaks appear in the photon spectrum locating at resonant momenta of the parametric amplification determined by the frequency of the $`\pi ^0`$ oscillations. Since the measured emitted photons are chosen with the momentum along the $`\widehat{z}`$ direction and the plasma expansion is along the radial direction, the Doppler effect would cause the emitted photons either blue-shifted if the photon comes from the place where the direction of its momentum is along with that of the expansion at that place, or red-shifted if the direction of its momentum is opposite to that of the expansion. As a result, as we can see in Fig. 3, the Doppler effect leads to smoothing out the resonant peaks found in Refs. boy2 ; leeng . In addition, one can also estimate the corresponding boost factor arising from the background expansion effect. From Eq. (35) and $`k=q\tau /\tau _i`$, one can relate the momentum $`k`$ in the comformal frame to the momentum $`p`$ in the laboratory frame by $`pe^\eta k`$, where $`\eta =0.65`$, $`0.8`$ and $`1.0`$ in Fig. 3. This background expansion may boost the photon energy, say below the ultraviolet momentum cutoff of 1 GeV produced from the low-energy effective interactions in Eqs. (79), to the energy as high as the order of $`2`$ GeV.

In conclusion, we have studied the production of photons through the non-equilibrium relaxation of a disoriented chiral condensate within which the chiral order parameter initially has a non-vanishing expectation value along the $`\pi ^0`$ direction, taking into account the hydrodynamical expansion of the central rapidity region. The production of non-equilibrium photons driven by the oscillation of the $`\pi ^0`$ field due to parametric amplification is modified by the expansion which smoothes out the resonant photon production in the ”quench” scenario. However, the resulting photon spectrum exceeds that for thermal photons from quark-gluon plasma and hadronic matter for photon energies around $`0.22\mathrm{GeV}`$. These non-thermal photons can be a potential test of the formation of disoriented chiral condensates in relativistic heavy-ion-collision experiments.

We would like to thank D. Boyanovsky, Hector de Vega, and S.-Y. Wang for their useful discussions. The work of Y.-Y. Charng, K.-W. Ng, and D.-S. Lee were supported in part by the National Science Council, ROC under the grants NSC90-2811-M-001-071, NSC90-2112-M-001-028, and NSC90-2112-M-259-011 respectively.


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# Schemes for generating W state of paths and W state of polarization photons

## Abstract

In this paper, we give two very simple schemes to produce two kinds of W states, one kind is path W state with one photon and the other is multiphoton photon polarization W state. These schemes just need a common commercial multiport fiber coupler and single photon sources, they are feasible by current technologies.

03.65.Ta,

Entanglement is the key physical resource in most quantum information process, e. g., quantum teleportation , quantum key distribution , quantum computation and so on. In multiparticle case, it was shown that there exists two inequivalent classes of entangled states, namely Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ)  state and W state , where, for example in three-particle case, $`|GHZ=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}[|000+|111]`$ and $`|W=\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}[|001+|010+|100]`$ , they can not been converted to each other even under stochastic local operations and classical communication. Recently, Cabello considered a set of Bell inequality to show some differences between the violation of local realism exhibited by GHZ state and W state. One obvious application of general W state is telecloning . If we choose the particular W state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{clone}=\sqrt{\frac{2}{3}}|100\sqrt{\frac{1}{6}}|010\sqrt{\frac{1}{6}}|001`$, then we can get precisely a Bužek-Hillery cloning  from the sender to two receivers, provided that the results are averaged over the four possible measurement outcomes of Bell state by sender. In Ref. , we give a scheme by which W state can be used to realize the teleportation of an unknown state probabilisticly. The teleportation of the entangled state and dense coding by W state are discussed in Ref. . In this paper, we consider how to produce a W state. The GHZ state has been produced in laboratory recently using Spontaneous-Parametric-Downcoversion.  How about W state? In Ref. , authors present a quantum electrodynamics scheme, by which, a multiatom W state can be produced. The Heisenberg model was used to produce three-atom or four-atom W state in Ref. . Very recently, Zou et. al  present a scheme by which a four-photon or a three-photon W state can be generated by linear optical elements. In their scheme, besides many linear optical elements, a maximal entangled state source and single photon source are needed. The setup seems complicated. In this paper, we give two very simple schemes, by which, two kinds of W state can be produced very easily. The first kind is the path W state, the character of the first kind W state is that the total number of particle is just one. The successful probability is 100%. The second is the multiphoton polarization W state, we can get it probabilisticly with postselection. In these two schemes, just a common commercial multiport fiber coupler and single photon source are needed. Contrast to the scheme , no maximal entangled source and other linear optic elements are needed. So, they are very simple and easy to do in practice. Furthermore, by these schemes, not only a three-mode or a four mode W state (first kind) and a three-photon or a four-photon W state (second kind), but also an arbitrary multimode (first kind) and multiphoton (second kind) W state can be produced in principle, so our schemes are more general than the scheme in Ref. . In the follow, we give these schemes to produce two kinds of different W states respectively. Firstly, we discuss how to generate the first kind of W state.

We take how to produce the state $`|W=\sqrt{\frac{1}{3}}[|001+|010+|100]_{123}`$ as an example, where, subscripts 1, 2, 3 refer to the different three space modes, and $`|0`$ means vacuum state, $`|1`$ means one photon state. In order to do it, what we need is just a 3$`\times `$3 symmetric fiber coupler (tritter) if we do it in fiber system. A symmetric 3$`\times `$3 fiber can be described by a unimodulat matrix. A standard form of the tritter matrix $`T`$, in which the first column and the first row are real, is given by

$$T=\sqrt{\frac{1}{3}}\left[\begin{array}{ccc}1& 1& 1\\ 1& \mathrm{exp}(i\frac{2\pi }{3})& \mathrm{exp}(i\frac{4\pi }{3})\\ 1& \mathrm{exp}(i\frac{4\pi }{3})& \mathrm{exp}(i\frac{2\pi }{3})\end{array}\right].$$
(1)
If the input state to the tritter is $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{in}=(1,0,0)_{123}`$, where, 1, 2, 3 refer to three input ports of tritter, one photon is in input 1, the inputs to 2 and 3 are vacuum state, then the output state $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{out}`$ = $`T`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{in}=\sqrt{\frac{1}{3}}[|100+|010+|001]_{1^{}2^{}3^{}},`$ where, 1’, 2’, 3’ refer to three output ports of tritter. This is the W state which we want to produce. The probability of success is 100%. Obviously, besides one single-photon source and one common tritter, no other element is needed, so this scheme is very simple.

We can generalize this method to produce an arbitrary path W state of one photon. What we need is just a N$`\times `$N lossless multiport fiber beam splitter. This multiport fiber coupler can be described by a unitary N$`\times `$N matrix, where the matrix elements are the probability amplitudes for transmission from a certain input port to one of the N output ports. The relation between N input ports \[$`a_1,`$ $`a_2,\mathrm{}.a_N]`$ and N output ports \[$`b_1,`$ $`b_2,\mathrm{}.b_N]`$ can be described by the equation

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}b_1\\ b_2\\ .\\ .\\ .\\ b_N\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{c}M_{11}\text{ }M_{12}\text{ }\mathrm{}\text{ }\mathrm{}\text{ }M_{1N}\\ M_{21}\text{ }M_{22}\text{ }\mathrm{}\text{ }\mathrm{}\text{ }M_{2N}\\ .\\ .\\ .\\ M_{N1}\text{ }M_{N2}\text{ }\mathrm{}\text{ }\mathrm{}\text{ }M_{NN}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}a_1\\ a_2\\ .\\ .\\ .\\ a_N\end{array}\right).$$
(2)
If the input state is $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{in}=[1,0,\mathrm{}\mathrm{..0}]_{1,2,\mathrm{}.N},`$ i. e., besides input 1 is in one photon state, the other N-1 inputs are in vacuum states , then the output state $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{out}=[M_{11},M_{21},\mathrm{}.M_{N1}],`$ i. e., $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{out}=M_{11}|10\mathrm{}0+M_{21}|01\mathrm{}0+\mathrm{}.+M_{N1}|00\mathrm{}1,`$ where, $`\left|M_{11}\right|^2+\left|M_{21}\right|^2+\mathrm{}.+\left|M_{N1}\right|^2=1.`$ So, by choosing a simple multiport fiber coupler, the kind of arbitrary path W state with one photon can be produced very easily. The successful probability is 100%.

Next, we consider how to generate the multiphoton polarization W state. For application, this kind of W state is more useful. We also take how to produce the three-photon W state $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}`$\[$`|HHV+|HVH+|VHH]`$ as an example, the generalization to the arbitrary multi-photon W state $`\alpha |HH\mathrm{}..HV_N+\beta |HH\mathrm{}..VH_N+\mathrm{}..+\nu |VH\mathrm{}..HH_N`$ is straightforward, where, $`H`$ means horizontal linear polarization, $`V`$ means vertical polarization, $`\left|\alpha \right|^2`$+$`|\beta |^2+\mathrm{}..+|\nu |^2=1.`$ In order to generate the three-photon W state, we need three single photon sources, which produce $`H_1,H_2`$ and $`V_3`$ photons respectively and a 3$`\times `$3 fiber tritter. Here, we use the symmetry fiber tritter. The transformation matrix is shown in Eq. (1). We let three photons 1, 2 and 3 enter the inputs 1, 2 and 3 of fiber tritter respectively at the same time. In outputs of tritter, if we only consider the case in which there is only one photon in each output, then we can get

$$[e^{i\frac{2\pi }{3}}+e^{i\frac{4\pi }{3}}][|HHV+|HVH+|VHH]_{1^{}2^{}3^{}},$$
(3)
where, 1’, 2’ and 3’ refer to three outputs of tritter. The probability of getting the W state is $`\frac{1}{9},`$ which is larger than the scheme in Ref. . For producing four-photon W state $`\frac{1}{2}`$\[$`|HHHV+|HHVH+|HVHH+|VHHH]`$, we can use a 4$`\times `$4 canonical quarter to do it. . By postselection, we can get it with probability 1/16, which is just few less than 2/27 of Ref., but it is more simpler and more easy to do it. In principle, we can generate an arbitrary multiphoton W state by same way. What we need is just a N$`\times `$N fiber coupler which can be described by the unitary transformation matrix Eq. (2) and N single photon sources. In practice, the N$`\times `$N fiber coupler is standard commercial product, so the problem is single-photon source. Now, there are some methods to produce the single photon.\[17-19\]

In summary, we give two very simple schemes to produce two kinds of W states. These scheme just need a common commercial multiport fiber coupler and single photon sources, they are very easy to realize in practice. We can use this scheme to get the path W state with 100% probability without further requirements like postselection. Combining with postselection, we can get multiphoton polarization W state probabilisticly. Of course, we can produce the more modes W state from less modes W state or more photons W state from less photons W state by using the same procedure as entanglement swapping , the disadvantage is that the Bell state measurement is needed, which makes this scheme difficult in practice.

We thank Prof. H. Imai for his support.


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# Dilepton production from the Color Glass Condensate

## 1 Introduction

Perturbative QCD predicts a sharp rise in the number of gluons per unit area and rapidity in a proton/nucleus at high energy (small $`x`$) . This however would lead to violation of unitarity of hadronic cross sections at high energies. High gluon density and gluon recombination effects  are believed to be responsible for taming this growth and restoration of unitarity. It has been suggested that gluons at small $`x`$ can be described by a strong classical field  and that weak coupling, semi-classical methods can be applied to describe the physics of dense gluonic systems, such as a proton or nucleus at high energies. This dense system of gluons (the Color Glass Condensate) is characterized by a saturation momentum $`Q_s(x)`$ which grows fast with energy and rapidity.

There has been much work done in order to investigate the properties of the Color Glass Condensate in DIS electron-proton and electron-nucleus, as well as proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions . While the saturation effects in protons at current energies are far from being established , the situation in high energy nucleus-nucleus collisions is more intriguing. The saturation model seems to work reasonably well at RHIC  even though there are a lot of open questions which need to be addressed before one can claim that the saturation model describes high energy heavy ion collisions at RHIC quantitatively. The role of final state interactions, thermalization, etc. is still to be understood .

In a recent set of publications , we proposed that high energy proton-nucleus collisions at forward rapidities at RHIC may be an ideal place in order to investigate the Color Glass Condensate and the saturation model. By considering proton-nucleus collisions in the forward rapidity region, one can avoid most, if not all, of the complications present in a nucleus-nucleus collision. Previously, we calculated (real) photon production rate in $`pA`$ collisions  and showed that it is very sensitive to saturation effects in the nucleus.

In this work, we consider dilepton (virtual photon) production in $`pA`$ and show that dileptons provide a more versatile probe of the saturation model than photons. Furthermore, photons are notoriously difficult to measure in a collider environment. One needs to define isolation criteria in order to separate photons from different sources which greatly reduces the production rates in addition to introducing theoretical ambiguities in defining the isolation criteria. The use of factorization theorems, well established for high $`p_{}`$ inclusive photon production, may be questionable for isolated photons. By considering dilepton production, one can avoid most of these experimental and theoretical difficulties .

We briefly review our formalism and the differences between real and virtual photon cross sections in Section $`2`$. In section $`3`$, we consider the diffractive cross section and show that it vanishes. We consider the inclusive cross section in Section $`4`$ and derive the differential cross section for dilepton production in $`pA`$ collisions $`d\sigma /dzdM^2d^2k_{}`$, where $`M^2`$ and $`k_{}`$ are the dilepton invariant mass and transverse momentum while $`z`$ is its fractional energy. We end by discussing our results and the experimental signatures of saturation effects.

## 2 Real vs. virtual photon production

In order to reuse some parts of the calculation we already performed for real photon production , we start by a section highlighting the main differences between real photon and lepton pair production, as well as the common aspects.

We want to calculate the amplitude for the elementary process

$$q(p)+Aq(q)+l^+(k_\mathit{1})+l^{}(k_\mathit{2})+X$$
(1)
where a quark entering in the color field of a nucleus emits a lepton pair $`l^+l^{}`$. In terms of in- and out- states, this amplitude reads:

$$q(q)l^+(k_\mathit{1})l^{}(k_\mathit{2})_{\mathrm{out}}|q(p)_{\mathrm{in}}=<0_{\mathrm{out}}\left|b_{\mathrm{out}}(q)b_{\mathrm{in}}^{}(p)c_{\mathrm{out}}(k_\mathit{2})d_{\mathrm{out}}(k_\mathit{1})\right|0_{\mathrm{in}}>,$$
(2)
where $`b^{}`$ is the creation operator for a quark, while $`c^{}`$ and $`d^{}`$ respectively create a lepton and an anti-lepton. Applying the LSZ reduction formula to this amplitude , one obtains the following expression in terms of the fermionic fields:

$`<0_{\mathrm{out}}\left|b_{\mathrm{out}}(q)b_{\mathrm{in}}^{}(p)c_{\mathrm{out}}(k_\mathit{2})d_{\mathrm{out}}(k_\mathit{1})\right|0_{\mathrm{in}}>={\displaystyle d^4xd^4yd^4z_1d^4z_2}`$
$`\times e^{i(qxpy)}e^{i(k_1z_1+k_2z_2)}\overline{u}(q)\overline{w}(k_\mathit{2})(i\underset{x}{\overset{}{/}}m)(i\underset{z_2}{\overset{}{/}}m)`$
$`\times <0_{\mathrm{out}}\left|\mathrm{T}\psi (x)\overline{\psi }(y)\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}(z_1)\mathrm{\Psi }(z_2)\right|0_{\mathrm{in}}>(i\underset{y}{\overset{}{/}}+m)(i\underset{z_1}{\overset{}{/}}+m)v(k_\mathit{1})u(p),`$
where $`\psi `$ is the quark field, $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ the leptonic field, $`u`$ a quark free spinor, $`w`$ a lepton free spinor and $`v`$ an anti-lepton free spinor. Note that we have approximated all the renormalization constants by $`1`$ since we are going to compute only the lowest order in the couplings $`\alpha _{\mathrm{em}}`$ and $`\alpha __S`$. Therefor this amplitude is made of a quark line and a leptonic line, connected by photons. The quark line interacts with the background color which is used to describe the high energy nucleus. At lowest order in the electro-magnetic and strong coupling constants, only one bare photon connects the two fermionic lines, as illustrated in figure (1).

The part of the diagram that describes the scattering of the quark in the color field of the nucleus is identical to what we have already calculated for the case of photon production. Namely, the photon can be attached before or after the scatterings, but the terms where the photon is attached between scatterings of the quark on the nucleus are suppressed by inverse powers of the center of mass energy $`\sqrt{s}`$. Therefore, compared to the photon production case, we need only to replace the photon polarization vectors of the produced photon by the propagator of the (now virtual) photon, its coupling to the leptonic line and the spinors of the $`l^+l^{}`$ pair. This amounts to the following substitution111We have indicated the $`iϵ`$ prescription for the photon propagator, but it is in fact irrelevant here since the photon must have an invariant mass squared $`k^2`$ larger than $`4m_l^2`$ because of the threshold for the production of a pair of leptons with mass $`m_l`$.

$$ϵ_\mu (k)ϵ_\nu ^{}(k)\frac{g_{\mu \rho }}{k^2+iϵ}\frac{g_{\nu \sigma }}{k^2iϵ}L^{\rho \sigma }(k_1,k_2),$$
(4)
where $`kk_1+k_2`$ is the 4-momentum of the virtual photon, and where $`L^{\rho \sigma }(k)`$ is the discontinuity of the one-loop leptonic contribution to the photon polarization tensor (i.e. the loop on the upper part of the diagram of figure 1 \- only its discontinuity is needed since the leptons are produced on-shell).

An important simplification we used in the photon case was that the sum over the photon polarizations turned the product $`ϵ_\mu (k)ϵ_\nu ^{}(k)`$ into $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ (up to terms proportional to $`k_\mu `$ that do not contribute thanks to Ward identities). This property led to a dramatic simplification of the Dirac algebra involved in the calculation of the photon production cross-section. A priori, the object $`L^{\rho \sigma }(k_1,k_2)`$ is not proportional to $`g^{\rho \sigma }`$, which means that the fully differential lepton pair production cross-section has a more complicated Lorenz structure. If however we assume that one reconstructs the virtual photon 4-momentum from the momenta $`k_1,k_2`$ of the components of the lepton pair, the same simplification occurs. Indeed, if one integrates over the lepton momentum inside the leptonic tensor $`L^{\rho \sigma }`$, keeping the sum $`k=k_1+k_2`$ fixed, we obtain the following result:

$$L^{\rho \sigma }=\frac{2}{3}\alpha _{\mathrm{em}}(g^{\rho \sigma }k^2k^\rho k^\sigma ).$$
(5)
Therefore, for the cross-section $`d\sigma /d^4k`$, we have the same simplification as in the photon production case.

The relation between the differential cross-section and the amplitude can therefore be written as

$$d\sigma =\frac{d^4k}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{d^3q}{(2\pi )^32q_0}\frac{1}{2p^{}}\frac{2\alpha _{\mathrm{em}}}{3k^2}^\mu (p|qk)_\mu ^{}(p|qk)2\pi \delta (q^{}+k^{}p^{}),$$
(6)
where $`^\mu `$ is the amplitude for the production of a virtual photon, amputated of its external legs, and from which the factor $`2\pi \delta (q^{}+k^{}p^{})`$ has been removed. Explicitly, we have:

$`^\mu (p|qk)=ie_q\overline{u}(q)\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma ^{}(/p/k+m)\gamma ^\mu }{(pk)^2m^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma ^\mu (/q+/k+m)\gamma ^{}}{(q+k)^2m^2}}\right]u(p)`$
$`\times {\displaystyle }d^2x_{}e^{i(q_{}+k_{}p_{})x_{}}(U(x_{})1),`$ (7)
where $`e_q`$ is the electrical charge of the quark and where $`U(x_{})`$ is a matrix in the fundamental representation of $`SU(N_c)`$ that represents the interactions of the quark with the classical color field of the nucleus:

$$U(x_{})\mathrm{T}\mathrm{exp}\left\{ig^2_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}𝑑z^{}\frac{1}{_{}^2}\rho _a(z^{},z_{})t^a\right\}$$
(8)
with $`t^a`$ in the fundamental representation, and where $`\rho _a(z^{},z_{})`$ is the density of color sources in the nucleus. The color averages over the distribution of hard color sources in the nucleus are identical to the case of photon production, and can be found in section 3 of .

The factor $`^\mu _\mu ^{}`$ in the cross-section differs from the factor we denoted $`||^2`$ in our calculation of photon production only in the fact that we must not assume $`k^2=0`$ in the calculation. In fact, in this quantity, only the factor $`\mathrm{tr}(L^{}L)_{\mathrm{spin}}`$ that contains the Dirac algebra is affected by this change. Its new value is now:

$`\mathrm{tr}(L^{}L)_{\mathrm{spin}}`$ $`=`$ $`16m^2\left[{\displaystyle \frac{p^{}^2}{D_q^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{q^{}^2}{D_p^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{k^{}^2}{D_pD_q}}\right]`$ (9)
$`+8(p^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+q^{}{}_{}{}^{2})[{\displaystyle \frac{2pq}{D_pD_q}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{D_p}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{D_q}}]`$
$`+8k^2\left[{\displaystyle \frac{p^{}^2}{D_q^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{q^{}^2}{D_p^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{(p^{}+q^{})^2}{D_pD_q}}\right],`$
where $`m`$ is the mass of the quark and where we denote $`D_p(pk)^2m^2=2pk+k^2`$ and $`D_q(q+k)^2m^2=2qk+k^2`$. It is trivial to check that it reduces to the value found in  if we set $`k^2=0`$. Having in mind the fact that the quark comes from the wave-function of a proton, we neglect the mass of the quark in the following.

## 3 Diffraction

Like in , we can first study the case of diffractive dilepton production, as the kinematics is simpler. Let us just remember that the diffractive cross-section is obtained by performing the average over the distribution of nuclear color sources before squaring the amplitude. This implies that no net transverse momentum is exchanged between the nucleus and the quark, i.e. $`p_{}=q_{}+k_{}`$. If one evaluates the factor $`\mathrm{tr}(L^{}L)_{\mathrm{spin}}`$ with this kinematical constraint, one obtains a vanishing result if we neglect the mass $`m`$ of the quark:

$$\mathrm{tr}(L^{}L)_{\mathrm{spin}}^{\mathrm{diff}}=0.$$
(10)
This is in fact similar to the case of real photon production: the absence of transverse momentum exchange between the quark and the nucleus prevents the emission of the virtual photon.

## 4 Inclusive cross-section

If we do not require a diffractive process on the nuclear side, we just have to perform the average over colors sources after squaring the amplitude. The details of this procedure are given in section 6 of . We obtain the following expression for the differential cross-section:

$`d\sigma _{\mathrm{incl}}={\displaystyle \frac{d^4k}{(2\pi )^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3q}{(2\pi )^32q_0}}{\displaystyle \frac{e_q^2\pi R^2}{2p^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{2\alpha _{\mathrm{em}}}{3k^2}}\mathrm{tr}(L^{}L)_{\mathrm{spin}}`$
$`\times 2\pi \delta (q^{}+k^{}p^{})C(p_{}q_{}k_{}),`$ (11)
where we define again

$$C(l_{})d^2x_{}e^{il_{}x_{}}U(0)U^{}(x_{})_\rho .$$
(12)
Like in the case of real photon production, all the information about the nature of the medium crossed by the quark (in particular, all the dependence on the saturation scale $`Q_s`$) is contained in this function $`C`$.

At this point, it is useful to introduce the longitudinal momentum fraction of the virtual photon $`zk^{}/p^{}`$, as well as the total transverse momentum transfer between the nucleus and the quark $`l_{}q_{}+k_{}`$. The phase space $`d^4k`$ of the lepton pair can be rewritten as $`d^4k=\frac{1}{2}d(M^2)(dz/z)d^2k_{}`$, while the phase space of the outgoing quark can be written as $`d^3q/(2\pi )^32q_0=\frac{1}{2}(dq^{}/q^{})\theta (q^{})d^2l_{}`$ (implicitly, $`q^+=q_{}^2/(2q^{})`$). In terms of these new variables, the inclusive differential cross-section reads (for unit electric charge of quark)

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi R^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{\mathrm{incl}}^{qAql^+l^{}X}}{dzd^2k_{}d\mathrm{log}M^2}}={\displaystyle \frac{2\alpha _{\mathrm{em}}^2}{3\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{d^2l_{}}{(2\pi )^4}}C(l_{})`$
$`\times \{\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1+(1z)^2}{z}}\right]{\displaystyle \frac{z^2l_{}^2}{[k_{}^2+M^2(1z)][(k_{}zl_{})^2+M^2(1z)]}}`$
$`z(1z)M^2[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{[k_{}^2+M^2(1z)]}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{[(k_{}zl_{})^2+M^2(1z)]}}]^2\}.`$
(13)
This is our main result. It gives the differential cross section for inclusive production of dileptons in high energy quark-nucleus collisions and includes all the high gluon density effects in the nucleus. All the information about the high gluon density effects in the nucleus is contained in the function $`C(l_{})`$ . This function behaves as $`1/l_{}^4`$ in the $`l_{}Q_s`$ (perturbative) region and like $`1/l_{}^2`$ at $`l_{}Q_s`$. For $`l_{}Q_s`$, it is almost flat. Furthermore, the value of $`l_{}`$ where the slope of the cross section changes strongly depends on rapidity. This slow down happens at higher values of $`l_{}`$ in the forward rapidity region.

This expression reduces to the one found in  for real photon production if we take the limit $`M^20`$ as it must. The main difference compared to the production of a real photon is the fact that the collinear singularities at $`k_{}=zl_{}`$ and $`k_{}=0`$ are now screened by the invariant mass squared of the lepton pair, via the term $`M^2(1z)>0`$.

In order to relate (13) to proton-nucleus collisions, we will need to convolute (13) with the quark distribution function in a proton using collinear factorization theorem. Explicitly,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{\mathrm{incl}}^{pAql^+l^{}X}}{dzd^2k_{}d\mathrm{log}M^2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑xq(x,Q_f^2)\frac{d\sigma _{\mathrm{incl}}^{qAql^+l^{}X}}{dzd^2k_{}d\mathrm{log}M^2}}`$ (14)
Furthermore, one will need to convolute the above cross section with a quark/hadron or quark/jet fragmentation function if one is interested in measuring both the outgoing hadron/jet as well as the dilepton. Otherwise, one can do the $`l_{}`$ integration above to get the $`pAl^+l^{}X`$ differential cross section.

Experimentally, one will be able to study $`M^2`$, $`k_{}^2`$ and rapidity ($`z`$) dependence of the dilepton production cross section in $`pA`$ collisions at RHIC in the near future. Here, we outline our qualitative predictions from the Color Glass Condensate picture of a nucleus at high energy which will be straightforward to verify/falsify at RHIC.

First, as compared to the standard leading twist perturbative QCD, we expect that the partonic level cross section $`d\sigma /dyd^2l_{}`$ will change its behavior from $`1/l_{}^4`$ to $`1/l_{}^2`$ for $`l_{}Q_s`$ and an even flatter behavior at smaller $`l_{}`$, at fixed rapidity. Convoluting the partonic cross section with parton structure functions in order to get the proton-nucleus cross section will change the power of $`l_{}`$. Nevertheless, we expect the difference in the power of $`l_{}`$ to be observable even after the convolution .

Second, the change of the slope of the cross section from $`1/l_{}^4`$ to $`1/l_{}^2`$ will happen at a higher transverse momentum in the forward rapidity region than the mid-rapidity region. Indeed, the saturation scale of the nucleus near the fragmentation region of the proton is much larger than the value $`Q_s^212`$GeV2 usually quoted at mid-rapidity . The growth of the saturation scale with energy is known from DIS experiments at HERA  and heavy ion collisions at RHIC .

For the same reason as above, transverse momentum broadening of the jet+dilepton system will depend on its rapidity: it will be larger at forward rapidities. This broadening proportional to $`Q_s`$ adds up to the broadening due to initial ”intrinsic transverse momentum” of the incoming quark. This effect has been neglected in our final result by setting $`p_{}=0`$. All it would take to keep both effects simultaneously would be to keep $`p_{}0`$ in the calculation.

A more quantitative investigation of our results is beyond the scope of this work and will be pursued elsewhere. Nevertheless, we would like to point out that inclusion of the standard leading order pQCD diagrams  such as dilepton production via quark-anti-quark annihilation222In principle, one will have to include the effects of high gluon densities on sea quarks. However, this will have another factor of $`\alpha _s`$ and therefore is higher order and from direct (virtual) photon diagrams will be required for numerical accuracy. Since these diagrams are not effected by the strong classical field of the nucleus and do not interfere with the diagrams considered in this work, one can just add their contribution to our results. This way, one will have the full LO \[$`O(\alpha _{em}^2)`$\] and NLO \[$`O(\alpha _s\alpha _{em}^2`$\] dilepton production cross section in $`pA`$ including the high gluon density effects in the nucleus .

We would like to emphasize that our result (13) can also be used for heavy ion collisions in the very forward rapidity region where valence quarks are the dominant partons in the projectile nucleus. The only difference with $`pA`$ is that one would then need to convolute our cross section with the quark distribution function in a nucleus rather than a proton. This may make it possible to extract the shadowing function for quarks (at large $`x`$) in the projectile nucleus by considering the ratio of dilepton cross sections in $`AA`$ and $`pA`$ collisions at RHIC or LHC.

## Acknowledgment

We would like to thank A. Dumitru and R. Fries for useful discussions. F.G. is supported by CNRS. J. J-M. is supported in part by a PDF from BSA and by U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-98CH10886.