Probing in-medium vector mesons by dileptons at heavy-ion colliders

Abstract

An introduction to physics of in-medium hadrons with special emphasis towards modification of vector meson properties in dense nuclear matter is given. We start from remarkable analogy between the in-medium behavior of atoms in gases and hadrons in nuclear matter. Modifications of vector meson widths and masses can be registered experimentally in heavy-ion collisions by detecting dilepton spectra from decays of nucleon resonances and light unflavored mesons including $\rho$- and $\omega$-mesons. Theoretical schemes for description of the in-medium hadrons are reviewed and recent experimental results of the NA60 and HADES collaborations on the dilepton production are discussed.