Hard thermal photon production in relativistic heavy ion collisions

The recent status of hard thermal photon production in relativistic heavy ion collisions is reviewed and the current rates are presented with emphasis on corrected bremsstrahlung processes in the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) and quark-hadron duality. Employing Bjorken hydrodynamics with an EOS supporting the phase transition from QGP to hot hadron gas (HHG). thermal photon spectra are computed. For SPS 158 GeV ph + ph collisions, comparison with other theoretical results and the WA98 direct photon data indicates significant contributions due to prompt photons. Extrapolating the presented approach to RHIC and LHC experiments, predictions of the thermal photon spectrum show a QGP outshining the HHG in the hiph-p(T)-region. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.