Thermal Photons in Strong Interactions

Abstract

A brief survey is given on the current status of evaluating thermal production of photons from a strongly interacting medium. Emphasis is put on recent progress in assessing equilibrium emission rates in both hadronic and quark-gluon matter. We also give an update on the status of comparing theoretical calculations with experimental data from heavy-ion collisions at the SPS, as well as prospects for RHIC. Finally, applications of photon rate calculations to colorsuperconducting quark matter are discussed.Comment: Brief Review for Mod. Phys. Lett A, 15 pages latex incl. 12 ps/eps figs and style file ws-mpla.cl