The In-medium Mass and Widths of Light Vector Mesons

Partial restoration of chiral symmetry in ordinary nuclear matter suggests the modification of properties of vector mesons, such as a shift in mass and/or a change of width. Photoproduction of vector mesons off nuclei were performed at Jefferson Lab using the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS). The properties of the ρ, ω and φ mesons were investigated via their rare leptonic decay to e+e-. This decay channel has an advantage over hadronic modes as it eliminates final state interactions in the nuclear matter. After subtracting the combinatorial background, the meson mass distributions were extracted for each of the nuclear targets. No significant mass shift is observed, however substantial increase in the widths of the mesons is reported.