Ultra-peripheral collisions of fully stripped gold ions at RHIC energies

In relativistic heavy-ion collisions, the strong Lorentz-contracted electromagnetic fields are capable of producing copious numbers of lepton pairs through the two-photon mechanism. The calculated cross section of electron-positron pair production at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) is about 33 000 barns and pair production can occur at large impact parameters. Here we calculate differential cross sections of pair production as a function of transverse momentum p(T), rapidity, invariant mass and impact parameter.