Light meson nuclear modification factor in p-Pb collisions over an unprecedented $p_\mathrm{T}$ range with ALICE

Abstract: Light neutral meson differential invariant cross section and nuclear modification factor measurements have been carried out with the ALICE detector at the CERN LHC in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV and p--Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}}=8.16$ TeV. The analysis combines results from several partially independent reconstruction techniques where the $\pi^0$ and $\eta$ meson decay photons were detected with the electromagnetic calorimeter, EMCal, the photon spectrometer, PHOS, or via reconstruction of $e^+e^-$ pairs from conversions in the ALICE detector material using the central tracking system. The neutral pion measurement reaching a $p_\mathrm{T}$ of 200 GeV/$c$ poses as the highest measured identified particle spectrum to date while the $\eta$ meson is measured to an unprecedented $p_\mathrm{T}$ of 50 GeV/$c$. The spectra are found to be generally overestimated by NLO pQCD calculations. The nuclear modification factors of both mesons exhibit a suppression for $p_\mathrm{T}<10$ GeV/$c$ which is stronger compared to previous measurements at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}}=5.02$ TeV and consistent with CGC and cold nuclear matter energy loss calculations. For $p_\mathrm{T}>10$ GeV/$c$, $R_\mathrm{pPb}$ is consistent with unity and theory predictions.