Rate and ellipticity of dilepton production in a magnetized quark-gluon plasma

Abstract: Using the Landau-level representation for the imaginary part of the photon polarization tensor, we derive an explicit expression for the dilepton production rate from a hot quark-gluon plasma in a quantizing background magnetic field. We study in detail the dependence of the production rate on the dilepton invariant mass and the transverse momentum at mid-rapidity. We also investigate the angular dependence and ellipticity of dilepton emission. By comparing the result with the zero-field Born approximation, we find that the magnetic field leads to a strong enhancement of the dilepton rate at small values of the invariant mass ($M\lesssim\sqrt{|eB|}$). In the same kinematic region, the dilepton production is characterized by a sizable ellipticity. At large values of the dilepton invariant mass ($M\gtrsim\sqrt{|eB|}$), the role of the magnetic field decreases and the result approaches the isotropic zero-field Born rate. By investigating the dependence of ellipticity on the transverse momentum, we argue that the future measurements of dilepton rate in the region of small invariant masses can constrain the magnetic field produced in heavy-ion collisions.