Neutral pion and η meson production at midrapidity in Pb-Pb collisions at √sNN=2.76 TeV

• Main Authors: Acharya, Shreyasi, Acosta, Fernando T, Adamová, Dagmar, Adolfsson, Jonatan, Aggarwal, Madan M, Aglieri Rinella, Gianluca, Agnello, Michelangelo, Agrawal, Nikita, Ahammed, Zubayer, Ahn, Sang Un, Alme, Johan, Altenkaemper, Lucas, Djuvsland, Øystein, Fionda, Fiorella Maria Celeste, Lønne, Per-Ivar, Nystrand, Joakim, Rehman, Attiq ur, Røhrich, Dieter, Tambave, Ganesh Jagannath, Ullaland, Kjetil, Velure, Arild, Wagner, Boris, Zhang, Hui, Zhou, Zhuo, Zhu, Hongsheng, Arsene, Ionut Cristian, Bätzing, Paul Christoph, Dordic, Olja, Lardeux, Antoine Xavier, Lindal, Svein, Mahmood, Sohail Musa, Richter, Matthias, Røed, Ketil, Skaali, Toralf Bernhard, Tveter, Trine Spedstad, Wikne, Jon Christopher, Zhao, Chengxin, Helstrup, Håvard, Hetland, Kristin Fanebust, Kileng, Bjarte, Nesbø, Simon Voigt, Storetvedt, Maksim Melnik, Langøy, Rune, Lien, Jørgen André, Aiola, Salvatore, Akindinov, Alexander, Al-Turany, Mohammed, Alam, Sk Noor, De Albuquerque, Danilo Silva, Aleksandrov, Dimitry, ALICE, Collaboration
• Format: Article
• Language: English

Neutral pion and η meson production in the transverse momentum range 1 < p_T < 20 GeV/c have been measured at midrapidity by the ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in central and semicentral Pb-Pb collisions at √sNN = 2.76 TeV. These results were obtained using the photon conversion method as well as the Photon Spectrometer (PHOS) and Electromagnetic Calorimeter detectors. The results extend the upper p_T reach of the previous ALICE π^0 measurements from 12 to 20 GeV/c and present the first measurement of η meson production in heavy-ion collisions at the LHC. The η/π^0 ratio is similar for the two centralities and reaches at high p_T a plateau value of 0.457 ± 0.013^[stat] ± 0.018^[syst]. A suppression of similar magnitude for π^0 and η meson production is observed in Pb-Pb collisions with respect to their production in pp collisions scaled by the number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions. We discuss the results in terms of Next to Leading Order (NLO) pQCD predictions and hydrodynamic models. The measurements show a stronger suppression than observed at lower center-of-mass energies in the p_T range 6 < p_T < 10 GeV/c. For p_T < 3 GeV/c, hadronization models describe the π^0 results while for the η some tension is observed.