Erlangen 2026 – scientific programme

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HK: Fachverband Physik der Hadronen und Kerne

HK 27: Poster Session

HK 27.7: Poster

Wednesday, March 18, 2026, 16:15–18:30, Redoutensaal

Simulation study of π⁰ flow contribution to direct photon HBT measurement — •Luis Escalante — Institut für Kernphysik, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

In heavy-ion collisions at the CERN-LHC, a new state of matter, the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), can be created to examine its properties, such as the temperature and spatio-temporal evolution. One approach to probe these properties is the measurement of Bose-Einstein correlations of direct photons using HBT interferometry. The measurement of direct-photon HBT correlations, however, requires a highly accurate determination of background contributions. Previous studies have shown that one of the dominant background sources is contamination from the elliptic flow (v₂) of π⁰ mesons. Providing a reliable estimate of this flow contribution is therefore essential for extracting the direct-photon signal.

In this poster, a simulation framework for assessing flow-induced correlations of decay photons originating from π⁰ mesons is presented. The study incorporates measured π⁰ yields and flow coefficients from ALICE Pb-Pb data and investigates the centrality dependence of flow contributions from decay photons. In addition, the impact of flow using the Bertsch-Pratt parametrization is explored. Based on the findings of these studies, an optimized description of mixed-event is proposed, for which the current status is presented.
Supported by BMFTR and the Helmholtz Association.

Keywords: Photon HBT, Flow Background, Mixed Events