Light Vector Mesons in Nuclear Matter

Abstract

We summarize the current theoretical and experimental status of the spectral changes of vector mesons ($\rho$, $\omega$, $\phi$) in nuclear medium. Various approaches including QCD sum rules, effective theory of hadrons and bag models show decreasing of the vector meson masses in nuclear matter. Possibility to detect the mass shift through lepton pairs in $\gamma-A$, $p-A$ and $A-A$ reactions are also discussed.