Equation of state and transverse expansion effects in heavy ion collisions

The effects of the equation of state on the expansion of hadronic matter and on the dilepton production rates in heavy ion collisions are studied. We have used two widely different descriptions of the hadron phase and considered scenarios with and without phase transition. The hadron phase is treated either as a gas of ideal massless pions or, more realistically, as a gas of different kinds of massive hadrons with finite size.