Impact of early stage non-equilibrium dynamics on photon production in relativistic heavy ion collisions

In this study we discuss our results on the spectrum of photons emitted from the quark-gluon plasma produced in heavy ion collisions at RHIC energies. Simulating the space-time evolution of the fireball by solving the relativistic Boltzmann transport equation and including two-particle scattering processes with photon emission allows us to make a first step in the description of thermal photons from the QGP as well as of those produced in the pre-equilibrium stage. Indeed, we consider not only a standard Glauber initial condition but also a model in which quarks and gluons are produced in the very early stage through the Schwinger mechanism by the decay of an initial color-electric field. In the latter approach relativistic kinetic equations are coupled in a self-consistent way to field equations. We aim at spotting the impact of early stage non-equilibrium dynamics on the photon production.