The Chiral Restoration Transition of QCD and Low Mass Dileptons

Recent developments in the evaluation of vector-meson spectral functions in hot and dense matter are discussed with emphasis on connections to the chiral phase transition in QCD. Model independent approaches including chiral low-density expansions, lattice QCD, chiral and QCD sum rules are put into context with model predictions for in-medium vector-spectral function utilizing effective Lagrangians. Hadronic many-body calculations predict a strong broadening (and little mass shift) of the $\rho$ spectral function which rapidly increases close to the expected phase boundary of hadronic and quark-gluon matter. Pertinent dilepton rates appear to degenerate with perturbative quark-antiquark annihilation in the Quark-Gluon Plasma, suggestive for chiral symmetry restoration. Applications to low-mass dilepton spectra in heavy-ion collisions result in quantitative agreement with recent high-quality data at the CERN-SPS. Thermal radiation from temperatures around $T_c$ consistently reproduces the experimental dilepton excess observed at masses above 1 GeV as well. The interpretation of dilepton sources at high transverse momentum appears to be more involved.