# Quark Matter 2012

12-18 August 2012
US/Eastern timezone

## Neutral meson production in pp and Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC measured with ALICE

15 Aug 2012, 12:00
20m

Oral Presentation

### Speaker

Dmitri Peresunko (National Research Centre Kurchatov Institute (RU))

### Description

Identified hadron spectra are considered to be sensitive to transport properties of strongly interacting matter produced in high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions. We present measurements of $\pi^0$ and $\eta$ mesons at mid-rapidity in a wide transverse momentum range in pp and Pb-Pb collisions at LHC energies measured with the ALICE detector. The mesons are reconstructed via their two-photon decays by two complementary methods, using the electromagnetic calorimeters and the central tracking system for photons converted to electron-positron pairs on the material of the inner ALICE barrel tracking detectors. The spectrum and the nuclear modification factor ($R_{AA}$) of the $\pi^0$ production measured in Pb-Pb collisions at different collision centralities show a clear pattern of strong suppression with respect to pp collisions. The azimuthal anisotropy ($v_{2}$) of the $\pi^0$ production is consistent with $v_{2}$ for other hadron species. Comparison of the ALICE results on neutral mesons with those of lower-energy experiments is discussed.

### Primary author

Collaboration ALICE (CERN, Geneva, Switzerland)

 Slides

Paper files: