Two-photon decays of vector mesons and dilepton decays of scalar mesons in dense matter

Two-photon decays of vector mesons and dilepton decays of scalar mesons, which are forbidden in vacuum and can occur in dense baryonic matter due to the explicit violation of Lorentz symmetry, are described within a quark model of the Nambu–Jona-Lasinio type. The temperature and chemical potential dependence of these processes is investigated. It is found that their contribution to the production of photons and leptons in heavy-ion collisions is enhanced near the conditions corresponding to the restoration of chiral symmetry. Moreover, in the case of the a0-meson and especially the ρ-meson, a resonant behaviour (an additional amplification) is observed due to the degeneration of ρ and a0 masses when hot hadron matter approaches a chirally symmetric phase.