Probing dense and hot matter with low-mass dileptons and photons

Abstract

Results on low-mass dileptons, covering the very broad energy range from the BEVALAC up to SPS are reviewed. The emphasis is on the open questions raised by the intriguing results obtained so far and the prospects for addressing them in the near future with the second generation of experiments, in particular HADES, NA60 and PHENIX.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figures, Proceedings of Hard Probes 2004 Conference, Ericeira, November 4-10, 2004. Caption of Figure 2 corrected. To be published in Eur. Phys. J. C. The orginal version is available at www.springerlink.co