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Dilepton production as a probe of pion condensation in hot and dense QCD matter

Aritra Bandyopadhyay1,2,*, Chowdhury Aminul Islam3,†, Krzysztof Redlich1,4,‡, and Chihiro Sasaki1,5,§

  • *Contact author: aritra.bandyopadhyay@e-uvt.ro
  • †Contact author: caislam.phys@aliah.ac.in
  • ‡Contact author: krzysztof.redlich@uwr.edu.pl
  • §Contact author: chihiro.sasaki@uwr.edu.pl
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Phys. Rev. D 113, 114044 – Published 23 June, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/15p8-7znz

Abstract

We investigate dilepton production from an isospin-asymmetric hot and dense medium in order to explore the role of isospin imbalance in electromagnetic spectral properties. We focus in particular on modifications of the dilepton production rate associated with the onset of pion condensation, which can occur in the presence of a finite isospin chemical potential. We employ the Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model with isoscalar-vector interaction. We examine the phase structure in the T−μI plane and estimate the vector current correlator-resummed dilepton rate for an effective quark chemical potential. We find that the interplay between isospin asymmetry, pion condensation, and vector interactions leads to nontrivial modifications of the dilepton yield. In particular, we observe two key features of the pion condensed phase: an enhancement at lower invariant mass and a prominent plateaulike structure which also help clearly identify the pion condensed phase from a chirally broken/restored phase. These results highlight the potential sensitivity of dilepton observables to pion-condensed phase of QCD matter, with possible implications for future low-energy heavy-ion collision experiments as well as isospin-rich environments such as neutron star matter.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 114044– Published 23 June, 2026
  • Received 11 May 2026
  • Accepted 2 June 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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