Probing the collision geometry via two-photon processes in heavy-ion collisions
摘要
The initial collision geometry, including the reaction plane, is crucial for interpreting the collective phenomena in relativistic heavy-ion collisions; however, it remains experimentally inaccessible through conventional measurements. Recent studies have proposed the utilization of photon-induced processes as a direct probe, leveraging the complete linear polarization of emitted photons, whose orientation strongly correlates with the collision geometry. In this study, we employed a QED-based approach to systematically investigate dilepton production via two-photon processes in heavy-ion collisions at RHIC and LHC energies and detector acceptances. Our calculations reveal that dilepton emission exhibits significant sensitivity to the initial collision geometry through both the azimuthal angles of their emission (defined by the relative momentum vector of the two leptons) and the overall momentum orientation of dilepton pairs. These findings highlight the potential of two-photon-generated dileptons as a novel polarization-driven probe for quantifying the initial collision geometry and reducing uncertainties in the characterization of quark–gluon plasma properties.