Photons from hadronic matter at finite temperature

Temperature dependence of hadronic decay widths and masses are studied within the framework of an effective Lagrangian approach. At finite temperature the hadronic masses do not seem to follow a universal scaling law. Considering an exhaustive set of hadronic reactions and vector meson decays we have estimated the photon spectrum emitted from hot hadronic matter taking into account medium effects through thermal loop corrections on the hadronic decay widths and masses. An enhancement in photon emission rate is obtained when we use the in-medium masses of vector mesons in our calculations. It is observed that the effect of rho decay width on the photon spectra is negligible. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.