Verification of the high temperature phase by the electron pair measurement at RHIC

At the high energy nuclear collisions of the RHIC accelerator, the high density parton materials are created. If the matter is the quark gluon plasma (QGP) in the high temperature phase of the QCD, thermal photons are expected to be to be radiated there. The direct photon production from the gold + gold collision reactions at RHIC has been measured by using the 'virtual photon method'. In the gold + gold collisions, very many photons are produced compared with the p + p collisions. The production of the excess direct photons approximately agrees with the theoretical prediction of the thermal photon production from the initial temperature from 300 to 600 MeV QGP. In the present explanatory text, the direct photon measurements at the RHENIX experiments of RHIC are described starting from the discovery of high density matter by RHIC. The photon measurements which give direct evidence of the high temperature state and the virtual photon measurement method are reported briefly. The measurements of the direct photons and the estimation of the initial temperature at RHIC are described in detail with illustrations. Finally, some recent results are added and the ALICE experiments of LHC are referred. (S. Funahashi)