Utilizing in-medium vector spectral functions which describe dilepton data in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions, we conduct a comprehensive evaluation of QCD and Weinberg sum rules at finite temperature. The starting point is our recent study in vacuum, where the sum rules have been quantitatively satisfied using phenomenological axial-/vector spectral functions which describe hadronic τ -decay data. In the medium, the temperature dependence of condensates and chiral order parameters is taken from thermal lattice QCD where available, and otherwise is estimated from a hadron resonance gas. Since little is known about the in-medium axialvector spectral function, we model it with a Breit-Wigner ansatz allowing for smooth temperature variations of its width and mass parameters. Our study thus amounts to testing the compatibility of the ρ-broadening found in dilepton experiments with (the approach toward) chiral restoration, and thereby searching for viable in-medium axialvector spectral functions.

Utilizing a coarse-graining method to convert hadronic transport simulations of Au+Au collisions at SIS energies into local temperature, baryon and pion densities, we compute the pertinent radiation of thermal dileptons based on an in-medium ρ spectral function that describes available spectra at ultrarelativistic collision energies. In particular, we analyze how far the resulting yields and slopes of the invariant-mass spectra can probe the lifetime and temperatures of the fireball. We find that dilepton radiation sets in after the initial overlap phase of the colliding nuclei of about 7 fm/c, and lasts for about 13 fm/c. This duration closely coincides with the development of the transverse collectivity of the baryons, thus establishing a direct correlation between hadronic collective effects and thermal EM radiation, and supporting a near local equilibration of the system. This fireball "lifetime" is substantially smaller than the typical 20-30 fm/c that naive considerations of the density evolution alone would suggest. We furthermore find that the total dilepton yield radiated into the invariant-mass window of M = 0.3 − 0.7 GeV/c 2 normalized to the number of charged pions, follows a relation to the lifetime found earlier in the (ultra-) relativistic regime of heavy-ion collisions, and thus corroborates the versatility of this tool. The spectral slopes of the invariant-mass spectra above the φ-meson mass provide a thermometer of the hottest phases of the collision, and agree well with the maximal temperatures extracted from the coarse-grained hadron spectra.

Electromagnetic (EM) radiation off strongly interacting matter created in high-energy heavy-ion collisions (HICs) encodes information on the high-temperature phases of nuclear matter. Microscopic calculations of thermal EM emission rates are usually rather involved and not readily accessible to broad applications in models of the fireball evolution which are required to compare to experimental data. An accurate and universal parametrization of the microscopic calculations is thus key to honing the theory behind the EM spectra. Here we provide such a parametrization for photon emission rates from hadronic matter, including the contributions from in-medium ρ mesons (which incorporate effects from anti-/baryons), as well as Bremsstrahlung from ππ scattering. Individual parametrizations for each contribution are numerically determined through nested fitting functions for photon energies from 0.2 to 5 GeV in chemically equilibrated matter of temperatures 100-180 MeV and baryon chemical potentials 0-400 MeV. Special care is taken to extent the parameterizations to chemical off-equilibrium as encountered in HICs after chemical freezeout. This provides a functional description of thermal photon rates within a 20% variation of the microscopically calculated values.

We show that in a general class of strongly interacting theories at high temperatures the speed of sound approaches the conformal value c_s^2=1/3 universally from_below_. This class includes theories holographically dual to a theory of gravity coupled to a single scalar field, representing the operator of the scale anomaly.Comment: 4 pages, corrected typo

We build a "bottom-up" holographic model of charmonium by matching the essential spectral data. We argue that this data must include not only the masses but also the decay constants of the J/ψ and ψ ′ mesons. Relative to the "soft-wall" models for light mesons, such a matching requires two new features in the holographic potential: an overall upward shift as well as a narrow "dip" near the holographic boundary. We calculate the spectral function as well as the position of the complex singularities (quasinormal frequencies) of the retarded correlator of the charm current at finite temperatures. We further extend this analysis by showing that the residues associated with these singularities are given by the boundary derivative of the appropriately normalized quasinormal mode. We find that the "melting" of the J/ψ spectral peak occurs at a temperature T ≈ 540 MeV, or 2.8 Tc, in good agreement with lattice results.