Energy Dependence of the Breit-Wheeler process in Heavy-Ion Collisions and its Application to Nuclear Charge Radius Measurements

The collision energy dependence of the cross section and the transverse momentum distribution of dielectrons from the Breit-Wheeler process in heavy-ion collisions are computed in the lowestorder QED and found to be sensitive to the nuclear charge distribution and the infrared-divergence of the ultra-Lorentz boosted Coulomb field. We demonstrate that the transverse-momentum component of Weizs¨ackerWilliams photons is due to the finite extent of the charge source and electric field component in the longitudinal direction. We further clarify the connection between the nuclear charge distribution and the kinematics of produced e +e − from the Breit-Wheeler process, and propose a criterion for the validity of the Breit-Wheeler process in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Following this approach, the experimental measurements of the Breit-Wheeler process in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions at RHIC and LHC can be used to quantitatively constrain the nuclear charge radius. The extracted parameters show sensitivity to the impact parameter dependence, and can be used to study the initial-state and final-state effects in hadronic interactions.