Measurements of hadron production in p-Pb collisions at LHCf

TL;DR

This paper reports measurements of neutral pion production in forward regions of p-Pb collisions at 5.02 TeV, revealing significant suppression compared to p-p collisions and comparing results with theoretical models.

Contribution

First measurement of forward neutral pion spectra in p-Pb collisions at LHC, providing data for nuclear modification factors and model validation.

Findings

Strong suppression of neutral pion production in p-Pb relative to p-p

Nuclear modification factor between 0.1 and 0.4

Results generally agree with hadronic interaction models

Abstract

The transverse momentum distribution for inclusive neutral pions in very forward rapidity region has been measured with the LHCf detector in p-Pb collisions at nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energies of $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV at the LHC. The transverse momentum spectra obtained in p-Pb collisions show a strong suppression of the production of neutral pions relative to the spectra in p-p collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 5.02 TeV. The nuclear modification factor is about 0.1-0.4, which overall agrees with the predictions of several hadronic interaction Monte Carlo simulations. Furthermore the recent results on the inclusive energy spectra of forward neutrons in p-p collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 7 TeV will be discussed.