  The Hanbury-Brown-Twiss (HBT) radii have been calculated from the two particle correlation functions with virtual photons produced in the collisions of two nuclei at ultra-relativistic energies. We show that the variation of the HBT radii with the invariant mass of the virtual photon can be used to characterize and distinguish the hadronic as well as the partonic phase that might have produced initially in the collisions. It has been illustrated that the non-monotonic variation of the HBT radii with invariant mass provides an access to the development of collective flow in the system. 
Characterizing quark gluon plasma by dilepton interferometry