Measurement of Low Transverse Momentum Direct Photons Via External Conversions in Au+Au Collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 200$ GeV with the PHENIX Detector at RHIC

Photons are an important probe of the hot and dense partonic medium created through the collision of heavy ions at RHIC. This is because they escape the medium with little modification and carry information about the earliest stages of the collision, including thermal radiation. It is also predicted that most of the direct photons with $1