Coherent lepton pair production in hadronic heavy ion collisions

Recently, significant enhancements of e(+)e(-) pair production at very low transverse momentum (p(T) < 0.15 GeV/c) were observed by the STAR collaboration in peripheral hadronic A+A collisions. This excesses can not be described by the QGP thermal radiation and rho in-medium broadening calculations. This is a sign of coherent photon-photon interactions, which were conventionally studied only in ultra-peripheral collisions. In this article, we present calculations of lepton pair (e(+)e(-) and mu(+)mu(-)) production from coherent photon-photon interactions in hadronic A+A collisions at RHIC and LHC energies within the STAR and ALICE acceptance. (c) 2018 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.