Dilepton Production at SIS Energies Studied with HADES

One of the main goals of the HADES experiment is to achieve a detailed understanding of dielectron emission from hadronic systems at moderate bombarding energies. Results obtained on electron pair production in elementary N+N collisions pave the way to a better understanding of the origin of the pair excess seen in heavy-ion collisions. This puzzling excess, reported first by the former DLS experiment, is now being investigated systematically by HADES.