2026-07-072026-07-07http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/198634The relation of the thermal dilepton signal from deconfined matter, resulting in central ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions at RHIC and LHC energies, to the background yields from the Drell-Yan process and correlated semileptonic decays of open charm and bottom mesons is analyzed. We demonstrate that very stringent kinematical cuts offer a chance to identify the thermal signal in the continuum region.8 LaTeX pages including eps figures, contribution to the Erice School on Nuclear Physics 1998 (to be published in "Progress in Particle and Nuclear Physics")High Energy Physics - Phenomenologytext