Abstract

We report on measurements of dielectron (e(+) e(-)) production in Au + Au collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 200 GeV per nucleon-nucleon pair using the STAR detector at BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. Systematic measurements of the dielectron yield as a function of transverse momentum (p(T)) and collision centrality show an enhancement compared to a cocktail simulation of hadronic sources in the low invariant-mass region (M-ee 1 GeV / c(2)). This enhancement cannot be reproduced by the rho-meson vacuum spectral function. In minimum-bias collisions, in the invariant-mass range of 0.30-0.76 GeV / c(2), integrated over the full pT acceptance, the enhancement factor is 1.76 +/- 0.06 (stat.) +/- 0.26 (sys.) +/- 0.29 (cocktail). The enhancement factor exhibits weak centrality and pT dependence in STAR's accessible kinematic regions, while the excess yield in this invariant-mass region as a function of the number of participating nucleons follows a power-law shape with a power of 1.44 +/- 0.10. Models that assume an in-medium broadening of the rho-meson spectral function consistently describe the observed excess in these measurements. Additionally, we report on measurements of omega-and phi-meson production through their e+ e(-) decay channel. These measurements show good agreement with Tsallis blast-wave model predictions, as well as, in the case of the phi meson, results through its K+ K- decay channel. In the intermediate invariant-mass region (1.1 Mee 3 GeV / c(2)), we investigate the spectral shapes from different collision centralities. Physics implications for possible in-medium modification of charmed hadron production and other physics sources are discussed.