Medium modifications of mesons in elementary reactions and heavy-ion collisions

Experimental searches for modifications of vector mesons in the nuclear medium are reviewed. Data on ρ,ω and Φ mesons are presented. The results have been obtained in elementary reactions with proton and photon beams as well as in heavy-ion collisions. Compared to the free particle properties, the ω and Φ mesons are found to have a drop in mass at normal nuclear matter density by 9%-14% and 3.5% whereas their widths are reported to increase by factors of about 16 and 3.6, respectively. For the ρ meson, conflicting results on in-medium mass shifts and broadening have been published. The experimental data are compared to recent model calculations.