Quark-matter diagnostics

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Abstract
We suggest that a phase transition between ordinary hadronic matter and quark matter is detectable in heavy-ion collisions by observing lepton-pair production spectra. Pair production rates are estimated on the basis of a "fireball model" of nuclear collisions. The presence of quark matter in the initial fireball should be revealed by an enhancement of the lepton-pair production rate at invariant masses between 200 and 600 MeV. Observation of lepton pairs within this mass interval is expected to serve as a sensitive diagnostic tool for probing the properties of bulk hadronic matter at high temperatures and compressions.