S =-1 meson-baryon interaction in hot and dense nuclear matter: chiral symmetry, many-body and unitarization for a road to GSI/FAIR

The dynamics of strange pseudoscalar and vector mesons in hot and dense nuclear matter is studied within a chiral unitary framework in coupled channels. Our results set up the starting point for implementations in microscopic transport approaches of heavy-ion collisions, particularly at the conditions of the forthcoming experiments at GSI/FAIR and NICA-Dubna. In the (K) over barN sector we focus on the calculation of (off-shell) transition rates for the most relevant binary reactions involved in strangeness production close to threshold energies, with special attention to the excitation of sub-threshold hyperon resonances and isospin effects (e.g. (K) over barp vs (K) over barn). We also give an overview of recent theoretical developments regarding the dynamics of strange vector mesons (K*,(K) over bar* and phi) in the nuclear medium, in connection with experimental activity from heavy-ion collisions and nuclear production reactions. We emphasize the role of hadronic decay modes and the excitation of hyperon resonances as the driving mechanisms modifying the properties of vector mesons.