Study of Dilepton Production in Nuclear Collisions with the Dilepton Spectrometer

Abstract

The DiLepton Spectrometer was created to study e+e- dielectron pairs emitted in nuclear collisions. Direct dilepton pairs are an excellent probe of the hot, dense matter created in nuclear collisions because they do not interact with other particles upon emerging from this environment. The experiment is carried out at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory with the use of the BEVALAC accelerator. The BEVALAC is capable of accelerating protons to a kinetic energy of 4.9 GeV and large nuclei, such as niobium, to 1.0 GeV. Presently, this particular energy region is of interest because of the small amount of experimental data available in this region and the unusual structures observed in the available data. At present, no theory has been developed which completely explains the experimental results.