Nuclear Physics Seminar

Due to the short time scales of a heavy ion collision, probes created during the collision are needed. Until recently, studies of the bulk matter created in a heavy ion collision have used the abundantly produced hadrons, particularly pions. Since pions interact strongly with the medium, the information they carry is focused late in the evolution, long after the medium has cooled from a quark-gluon plasma (QGP) phase. Photons, however, decouple upon creation, and are especially focused at large temperatures like a QGP phase. Although rare, photons yield valuable possible constraints on the dynamic models used to describe the heavy ion collision. Here, I present our results for electromagnetic radiation of heavy ion collisions from ideal hydrodynamics. We explore the dynamics of a collision through both the spectra and hydrodynamic flow of photons. I will also briefly examine the possibility of exploring the geometry of the collision through photon intensity interferometry from ideal hydrodynamics.