Transport analysis of in-medium hadron effects in pA and AA collisions

Abstract

The production and decay of vector mesons ($ρ, ω$) in pA and AA reactions is studied with particular emphasis on their in-medium spectral functions. It is explored within transport calculations if hadronic in-medium decays like $π^+π^-$ or $π^0 γ$ might provide complementary information to their dilepton ($e^+e^-$) decays. Whereas the $π^+ π^-$ signal from the $ρ$-meson is found to be strongly distorted by pion rescattering, the $ω$-meson Dalitz decay to $π^0 γ$ appears promising even for more heavy nuclei in $γA$ and pA reactions. Furthermore, the influence of nucleon and kaon/antikaon potentials on the $K^\pm$ yields and spectra in pA collisions is calculated and compared to the recent data from the ANKE Collaboration.