Off-shell transport of broad resonances and dilepton production at SIS energies

The time evolution of vector meson spectral functions is studied within a Boltzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck (BUU) type transport model. Applications focus on ρ and ω mesons being important pieces for the interpretation of the dielectron invariant mass spectrum. Since the evolution of the spectral functions is driven by the local density, the in-medium modifications turn out to compete, in this approach, with the known vacuum contributions.