1 / 25

Direct Photons in Au+Au Collisions Measured with the PHENIX Detector at RHIC

Direct Photons in Au+Au Collisions Measured with the PHENIX Detector at RHIC. Richard Petti For the PHENIX Collaboration Department of Physics and Astronomy Stony Brook University WWND 2011. Physics Motivation. Direct photons are an important probe of the QGP

yardan
Download Presentation

Direct Photons in Au+Au Collisions Measured with the PHENIX Detector at RHIC

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Direct Photons in Au+Au Collisions Measured with the PHENIX Detector at RHIC Richard Petti For the PHENIX Collaboration Department of Physics and Astronomy Stony Brook University WWND 2011 R. Petti WWND11

  2. Physics Motivation • Direct photons are an important probe of the QGP • Do not interact strongly with the QGP • Emitted at all stages of the fireball evolution • Rich physics at all momenta • High momentum is dominated by hard processes • Modification of the fragmentation function using γjets • A measured v2 could indicate pre-thermalized flow • Low momentum dominated by thermal radiation • Tells us something about the temperature of the plasma • v2 is very sensitive to thermalization time, τ0 • Possibly constrain this with data R. Petti WWND11

  3. Further Physics Motivation Chatterjee, Srivastava PhysRevC79, 021901,’09 • A little bit of theory • Assume that beyond some τ0 the system is thermalized • Ideal hydro evolution • The τ0 is varied, while keeping the rapidity density constant • Main points of the paper • v2 of hadrons insensitive to τ0 • v2 of thermal photons is • Small τ0 → larger initial temp. → larger QGP contrib. → smaller v2 R. Petti WWND11

  4. The PHENIX Detector at RHIC and Techniques for Photon Measurment • Measure photons that directly deposit energy into the EMCal • Works best at higher momentum • Measure virtual photons that internally convert into e+e- pairs • Allows a clean low pT measurement • Yield of virtual photons is related to real photon production • Measure real photons that externally convert in material into e+e- pairs • Complementary to virtual photon method R. Petti WWND11

  5. Measuring Photons in the EMCal Direct photon pTspectrum Little/no suppression of photons in central Au+Au Direct photon v2 R. Petti WWND11

  6. Measuring Virtual Photons (I) • Processes which produce photons can also produce virtual photons • Subsequently decay into low-mass e+e- pairs • Electrons can be reconstructed cleanly at low pT • The relation between photon and pair production can be written as R. Petti WWND11

  7. e+ 0 e-  e+ e- Measuring Virtual Photons (II) • Low mass pairs are made (mass < 0.3 GeV/c2) • Pairs from external photon conversions are removed • Correlated sources of background (cross pairs) are removed by studying like-sign pairs • A cocktail of hadronic decays is calculated with MC and is compared with the data R. Petti WWND11

  8. Compare Mass Distribution to Cocktail R. Petti WWND11 Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 132301 (2010)

  9. Extracting the Fraction of Direct Photons • Fit mass distribution with a two-component function f(mee) = (1 – r)fc(mee) + rfdir(mee) • Convert fraction r to direct photon yield as dNdir(pT) = r x dNincl(pT) • dNincl(pT) is determined from the yield of e+e- pairs using Enhancement R. Petti WWND11 Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 132301 (2010)

  10. Low Momentum Direct Photons from the Virtual Photon Method • PHENIX has measured low pT direct photon ratio in various collision systems, showing clear enhancement in A-A No significant enhancement R. Petti WWND11 See talk by D. Watanabe, Fri. Feb. 11, 9:00

  11. Measuring External Photon Conversions: Identification • PHENIX tracks outside magnetic field • Need to assume the origin • Assume particles come from event vertex • We are interested in conversions in the HBD backplane (radius ≈ 60cm) • Now our assumption is incorrect • Gives pairs an artificial opening angle • Leads to an apparent mass R. Petti WWND11

  12. Some Simulations of Conversions • Full GEANT simulation of photon conversions Mass = 12MeV

  13. Some Simulations of Conversions • Full GEANT simulation of photon conversions • Assume all particles come from a radius of 60cm (ATM)

  14. External Conversions – Applying the Cuts • Conversions at the HBD backplane should have no track separation here • Black – all e+/e- pairs • Red – cut on small dphiof the pair • Violet – cut on small dphiand dz at HBD shell A.U. A.U. Alternate Track Model Reco Normal Reco R. Petti WWND11

  15. Towards a Direct Photon v2 Using External Conversions • We want to know whether direct photons flow • We need three ingredients to calculate the direct photon v2 • Need the inclusive photon v2 • Need the fraction of direct photons above decay photons (Rγ= Ninc/Nhadron = r+1) • Need the π0 v2 (since most of the inclusive photons are from π0 decays) R. Petti WWND11

  16. Inclusive Photon v2 with External Conversions v2 v2 v2 • Correlate particles to the reaction plane angle • Average of two methods 0.2 0.1 0 0.2 0.1 0 0.2 0.1 0 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 photon pT [GeV/c] photon pT [GeV/c] photon pT [GeV/c] R. Petti WWND11

  17. Inclusive Photon v2 with External Conversions v2 v2 v2 • Compare to Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 032302 (2006) in the open symbols 0.2 0.1 0 0.2 0.1 0 0.2 0.1 0 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 photon pT [GeV/c] photon pT [GeV/c] photon pT [GeV/c] R. Petti WWND11

  18. Getting at the Direct Photon Fraction • Developed a π0 tagging technique to measure photons that come from π0 decays γ π0 R. Petti WWND11

  19. Measuring Rγ- The Double Ratio • Pair acceptance and efficiency cancels in the ratio • Conversion factor cancels e+/e- Pair efficiency e+/e- Pair acceptance DATA SIMULATION Conversion factor f: Conditional Acceptance of second decay photon Photon efficiency R. Petti WWND11

  20. Momentum Spectra Nγincl Arbitrary units π0 Reconstruction Nγπ0tag Arbitrary units

  21. Summary • At low momentum, direct photons can tell us about • Temperature of the plasma • Thermalization time • Looking at dielectron pairs is a nice tool to get a clean direct photon signal at low pT • PHENIX is measuring direct photons in various collisional systems (including baseline p+p and d+Au) • No significant enhancement in the baseline systems, but significant enhancement in A+A • Progress being made on using the external photon technique to measure direct photon v2 R. Petti WWND11

  22. Backups R. Petti WWND11

  23. Purity of the Photon Sample • During 2007, half the HBD was removed for repair mid-run • We can analyze the arms separately, with the HBDless arm representing the background • The background observed should be the same in both arms • Indicates that background pairs contribute less than 3% of the total photon yield R. Petti WWND11

  24. Conversion Recalibrator in 2D HBD conversions Dalitz R. Petti WWND11

  25. Elliptic Flow (v2) Non-central collision • In non-central collisions • Spatial anisotropy → pt anisotropy • Distribution of particles in phi is measured and Fourier decomposed • v2 is a measure of the elliptic flow strength R. Petti WWND11

More Related