N. Hammon et al., NUCLEAR SHADOWING EFFECTS ON PROMPT PHOTONS AT ULTRARELATIVISTIC ENERGIES, Physical review. C. Nuclear physics, 57(6), 1998, pp. 3292-3298
The transverse momentum distribution of prompt photons coming from the
very early phase of ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions for the ul
trarelativistic energies is calculated by means of perturbative QCD. W
e calculate the single photon cross section (A+B-gamma+X) by taking in
to account the partonic subprocesses q + (q) over bar-->gamma+g and q
+ g-->gamma+q as well as the bremsstrahlung corrections to those proce
sses. We choose a lower momentum cutoff k(0) = 2 GeV separating the so
ft physics from perturbative QCD. We compare the results for those pri
mary collisions with the photons produced in reactions of the thermali
zed secondary particles, which are calculated within scaling hydrodyna
mics. The QCD processes are taken in leading order. Nuclear shadowing
corrections, which alter the involved nuclear structure functions are
explicitly taken into account and compared to unshadowed results. Empl
oying the GRV parton distribution parametrizations we find that at ult
rarelativistic energies prompt QCD photons dominate over the thermal r
adiation down to transverse momenta k(T) approximate to 2 GeV. At LHC,
however, thermal radiation from the quark-gluon plasma dominates for
photon transverse momenta k(T) less than or equal to 5 GeV, if nuclear
shadowing effects on prompt photon production are taken into account.