Transport analysis of in-medium hadron effects in pA and AA collisions

The production and decay of vector mesons ($\rho, \omega$) in pA and AA reactions is studied with particular emphasis on their in-medium spectral functions. It is explored within transport calculations if hadronic in-medium decays like $\pi^+\pi^-$ or $\pi^0 \gamma$ might provide complementary information to their dilepton ($e^+e^-$) decays. Whereas the $\pi^+ \pi^-$ signal from the $\rho$-meson is found to be strongly distorted by pion rescattering, the $\omega$-meson Dalitz decay to $\pi^0 \gamma$ appears promising even for more heavy nuclei in $\gamma A$ and pA reactions. Furthermore, the influence of nucleon and kaon/antikaon potentials on the $K^\pm$ yields and spectra in pA collisions is calculated and compared to the recent data from the ANKE Collaboration.