Electron-pair production in Pb - Au collisions at 40 AGeV

This thesis contains the first experimental results on electron-pair production from the CERES/NA45 experiment at the CERN SPS after the upgrade with a Time Projection Chamber (TPC). The data were taken in late 1999 with a Pb-beam on a Au-target at a beam energy of 40 AGeV. Out of about 8 Million events with a 30$$ centrality selection, 249$pm$28 $e^{+}e^{-}$ pairs for masses $le$0.2 GeV/c$^{2}$ with a S/B ratio of 1/1, and 185$pm$48 $e^{+}e^{-}$ pairs for masses $>$0.2 GeV/c$^{2}$ with a S/B ratio of 1/6 were reconstructed. The low-mass sample agrees with the expectation from hadronic decays. The high-mass sample shows an excess of a factor of 5.1$pm$1.3(stat)$pm$1.0(syst) above that expectation, considerably more than the values around 2.5-3.5 observed before at the higher beam energy of 160 AGeV. The excess yield is dominantly associated with pair transverse momenta $<$0.5 GeV/c, consistent with the findings at 160 AGeV. The theoretical relevance of the results is discussed in some detail. The dilepton excess is basically interpreted as direct radiation from the fireball, dominated by pion annihilation with a modified $ho$-propagator. Theoretically, the modifications are driven by high baryon density more than by high temperature. The experimental results on a larger enhancement factor at a lower beam energy, associated itself with a larger baryon density, confirm this conjecture. Quite generally, the results may signal (partial) chiral symmetry restoration.