Perspectives of Scalar- and Vector-meson Production in Hadron-nucleus Reactions

The production and decay of vector mesons (ρ, ω) in pA reactions at COSY energies is studied with particular emphasis on their in-medium spectral functions. It is explored within transport calculations, if hadronic in-medium decays like ππ or πγ might provide complementary information to their dilepton (ee) decays. Whereas the ππ signal from the ρ-meson is found to be strongly distorted by pion rescattering, the ωmeson Dalitz decay to πγ appears promising even for more heavy nuclei. The perspectives of scalar meson (f0, a0) production in pp reactions are investigated within a boson-exchange model indicating that the f0-meson might hardly be detected in these collisions in the KK̄ or ππ decay channels whereas the exclusive channel pp → da+0 looks very promising.