Electromagnetic recombination spectra at the quark-hadron phase transition

Because quarks carry electric charge, they can radiate light when they change energy levels, which is exactly what happens when they hadronize. This is true not only in jets but also in heavy-ion collisions, where a thermalized plasma of quarks and gluons cools into a gas of hadrons. First, direct emission of photons from two quarks coalescing from the continuum into pions is calculated using the quark-meson model. The yield of final-state photons to pions is found to be about e(2)/g(pi qq)(2), which is on the order of a percent. Second, the yield of photons from the decay of highly excited color singlets, which may exist ephemerally during hadronizaton, is estimated. Because these contributions occur late in the reaction, they should carry significant elliptic flow, which may help explain the large observed flow of direct photons by the PHENIX Collaboration at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The enhanced emission also helps explain the PHENIX Collaboration's surprisingly large observed gamma/pi ratio.