Thermal Radiation from Au + Au Collisions at \sqrt{s} = 200 GEV/A Energy

The transverse momentum distribution of the direct photons measured by the PHENIX collaboration in $Au + Au$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV/A has been analyzed. It has been shown that the data can be reproduced reasonably well assuming a deconfined state of thermalized quarks and gluons with initial temperature more than the transition temperature for deconfinement inferred from lattice QCD. The value of the initial temperature depends on the equation of state of the evolving matter. The sensitivities of the results on various input parameters have been studied. The effects of the modifications of hadronic properties at non-zero temperature have been discussed.Comment: minor modifications in the text, accepted for publicatio