Recent progress in transport simulations of pA reactions to study the phi meson in nuclear matter

Gubler, P. 

There is presently no consensus on how the phi meson mass and width will change once it is put in a dense environment such as nuclear matter. While many theoretical works exist, connecting them with experimental measurements remains non-trivial task, as the phi meson in nuclear matter is usually produced in relatively high-energy pA reactions, which are generally non-equilibrium processes. In this talk, the status of recent theoretical research related to the behavior of the phi meson in nuclear matter is reviewed, with special focus on ongoing transport simulations of pA reactions in which the phi meson is produced in nuclei, which were (or will be) studied at KEK 325 and J-PARC E16 experiments.