Exploring baryon-rich QCD matter with dileptons

The study of the phase structure of strongly interacting matter under extreme conditions of temperature and density addresses fundamental aspects of QCD, among them the mechanism of confinement, the origin of the spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry and their importance for the generation of mass. Dileptons emitted in collisions of heavy ions offer the unique opportunity to investigate the microscopic properties of strongly interacting matter under such extreme conditions. This contribution discusses important experimental results in dilepton spectroscopy obtained so far by HADES. It will also address the tong-term goal of this research at GSI/FAIR, i.e. the establishment of a complete excitation function of dilepton production from energies of 1A GeV up to 11A GeV with HADES and CBM.