Dilepton production from p-p to CaCa at the Bevalac

Abstract The DLS collaboration has recently completed a high statistics study of dilepton production at the Bevalac. In particular, we have measured dielectrons (e + e − ) from p - p and p - d collisions to understand the basic dilepton production mechanisms in the energy range from 1.05 – 4.9 GeV. These data can be used to determine the basic processes which contribute to nucleon-nucleon dilepton production such as hadronic bremsstrahlung, vector meson processes, and hadronic Dalitz decay. The data show that a simple elastic bremsstrahlung calculation is insufficient to explain the data. Theoretical models are compared with the data. A new high statistics study of Ca  Ca at 1.05 A·GeV has been made to study the collectivity of A - A collisions.