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Asymmetric muon-antimuon emission from Z0 decays: A potential magnetometer in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

Alejandro Ayala1,2,3, Ana Julia Mizher2,3,4,5, and Javier Rendón1

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Phys. Rev. C 113, 034902 – Published 5 March, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/9j9b-tm9v

Abstract

We show that a very clear signal of the presence of a strong magnetic field during the early stage of a high-energy heavy-ion collision is provided by the decay of the Z0 into dimuon pairs. We find that the process is highly anisotropic, producing pairs mainly out of plane, as signaled by a negative value of v2, and leads to an antimuon transverse momentum distribution which peaks at a higher value of the transverse momentum compared to the peak of the muon transverse momentum distribution. We also show that the process does not produce a significant distortion of the Z0 spectral function. The signal can be identified by comparing the dimuon-invariant mass and the individual muon and antimuon spectra produced in semicentral heavy-ion collisions with the corresponding scaled spectra produced in p+p collisions at the Z0 peak.

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Phys. Rev. C 113, 034902– Published 5 March, 2026
  • Received 20 June 2025
  • Accepted 26 January 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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