Pions in the nuclear medium

Abstract

We discuss various aspects of pion physics in the nuclear medium. We first study s-wave pion-nucleus interaction in connection with chiral symmetry restoration and quark condensate in the nuclear medium. We then adress the question of p-wave pion-nucleus interaction and collective pionic modes in nuclei and draw the consequences for in medium $\pi\pi$ correlations especially in the scalar-isoscalar channel. We finally discuss the modification of the rho meson mass spectrum at finite density and/or temperature in connection with relativistic heavy ion collisions.Comment: 13 pages, latex, 8 figures eps (talk given at the Workshop, MESON'96, Cracow, Poland, 14 May 96