https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-017-4890-x
Regular Article - Experimental Physics
Production of 
and 
mesons up to high transverse momentum in pp collisions at 2.76 TeV
1
A.I. Alikhanyan National Science Laboratory (Yerevan Physics Institute) Foundation, Yerevan, Armenia
2
Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Puebla, Mexico
3
Bogolyubov Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kiev, Ukraine
4
Department of Physics, Centre for Astroparticle Physics and Space Science (CAPSS), Bose Institute, Kolkata, India
5
Budker Institute for Nuclear Physics, Novosibirsk, Russia
6
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA, USA
7
Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China
8
Centre de Calcul de l’IN2P3, Villeurbanne, Lyon, France
9
Centro de Aplicaciones Tecnológicas y Desarrollo Nuclear (CEADEN), Havana, Cuba
10
Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), Madrid, Spain
11
Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados (CINVESTAV), Mexico City, Mérida, Mexico
12
Centro Fermi-Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche “Enrico Fermi’, Rome, Italy
13
Chicago State University, Chicago, IL, USA
14
China Institute of Atomic Energy, Beijing, China
15
COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT), Islamabad, Pakistan
16
Departamento de Física de Partículas and IGFAE, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
17
Department of Physics, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India
18
Department of Physics, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA
19
Department of Physics, Sejong University, Seoul, South Korea
20
Department of Physics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
21
Department of Physics and Technology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
22
Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università ‘La Sapienza’ and Sezione INFN, Rome, Italy
23
Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università and Sezione INFN, Cagliari, Italy
24
Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università and Sezione INFN, Trieste, Italy
25
Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università and Sezione INFN, Turin, Italy
26
Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia dell’Università and Sezione INFN, Bologna, Italy
27
Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia dell’Università and Sezione INFN, Catania, Italy
28
Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia dell’Università and Sezione INFN, Padua, Italy
29
Dipartimento di Fisica ‘E.R. Caianiello’ dell’Università and Gruppo Collegato INFN, Salerno, Italy
30
Dipartimento DISAT del Politecnico and Sezione INFN, Turin, Italy
31
Dipartimento di Scienze e Innovazione Tecnologica dell’Università del Piemonte Orientale and INFN Sezione di Torino, Alessandria, Italy
32
Dipartimento Interateneo di Fisica ‘M. Merlin’ and Sezione INFN, Bari, Italy
33
Division of Experimental High Energy Physics, University of Lund, Lund, Sweden
34
European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Geneva, Switzerland
35
Excellence Cluster Universe, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany
36
Faculty of Engineering, Bergen University College, Bergen, Norway
37
Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia
38
Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic
39
Faculty of Science, P.J. Šafárik University, Kosice, Slovakia
40
Faculty of Technology, Buskerud and Vestfold University College, Tonsberg, Norway
41
Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
42
Gangneung-Wonju National University, Gangneung, South Korea
43
Department of Physics, Gauhati University, Guwahati, India
44
Helmholtz-Institut für Strahlen- und Kernphysik, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, Bonn, Germany
45
Helsinki Institute of Physics (HIP), Helsinki, Finland
46
Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan
47
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT), Mumbai, India
48
Indian Institute of Technology Indore, Indore, India
49
Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Jakarta, Indonesia
50
Inha University, Incheon, South Korea
51
Institut de Physique Nucléaire d’Orsay (IPNO), Université Paris-Sud, CNRS-IN2P3, Orsay, France
52
Institute for Nuclear Research, Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
53
Institute for Subatomic Physics of Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
54
Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics, Moscow, Russia
55
Institute of Experimental Physics, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Kosice, Slovakia
56
Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czech Republic
57
Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar, India
58
Institute of Space Science (ISS), Bucharest, Romania
59
Institut für Informatik, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
60
Institut für Kernphysik, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
61
Institut für Kernphysik, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Münster, Germany
62
Instituto de Ciencias Nucleares, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico
63
Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, Brazil
64
Instituto de Física, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico
65
IRFU, CEA, Université Paris-Saclay, 91191, Gif-sur-Yvette France, Saclay, France
66
iThemba LABS, National Research Foundation, Somerset West, South Africa
67
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), Dubna, Russia
68
Konkuk University, Seoul, South Korea
69
Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information, Taejeon, South Korea
70
KTO Karatay University, Konya, Turkey
71
Laboratoire de Physique Corpusculaire (LPC), Clermont Université, Université Blaise Pascal, CNRS-IN2P3, Clermont-Ferrand, France
72
Laboratoire de Physique Subatomique et de Cosmologie, Université Grenoble-Alpes, CNRS-IN2P3, Grenoble, France
73
Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, INFN, Frascati, Italy
74
Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro, INFN, Legnaro, Italy
75
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA
76
Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, Moscow, Russia
77
Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science, Nagasaki, Japan
78
Physics Department, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
79
National Centre for Nuclear Studies, Warsaw, Poland
80
National Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering, Bucharest, Romania
81
National Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhubaneswar, India
82
National Nuclear Research Center, Baku, Azerbaijan
83
National Research Centre Kurchatov Institute, Moscow, Russia
84
Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
85
Nikhef, Nationaal instituut voor subatomaire fysica, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
86
Nuclear Physics Group, STFC Daresbury Laboratory, Daresbury, UK
87
Nuclear Physics Institute, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Řež u Prahy, Czech Republic
88
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, USA
89
Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, Gatchina, Russia
90
Physics Department, Creighton University, Omaha, NE, USA
91
Physics Department, Panjab University, Chandigarh, India
92
Physics Department, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
93
Physics Department, University of Jammu, Jammu, India
94
Physics Department, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, India
95
Physikalisches Institut, Eberhard Karls Universit?t Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
96
Physikalisches Institut, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
97
Physik Department, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany
98
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
99
Pusan National University, Pusan, South Korea
100
Research Division and ExtreMe Matter Institute EMMI, GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, Darmstadt, Germany
101
Rudjer Bošković Institute, Zagreb, Croatia
102
Russian Federal Nuclear Center (VNIIEF), Sarov, Russia
103
Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata, India
104
School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
105
Sección Física, Departamento de Ciencias, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Peru
106
Sezione INFN, Bari, Italy
107
Sezione INFN, Bologna, Italy
108
Sezione INFN, Cagliari, Italy
109
Sezione INFN, Catania, Italy
110
Sezione INFN, Padua, Italy
111
Sezione INFN, Rome, Italy
112
Sezione INFN, Trieste, Italy
113
Sezione INFN, Turin, Italy
114
SSC IHEP of NRC Kurchatov institute, Protvino, Russia
115
Stefan Meyer Institut für Subatomare Physik (SMI), Vienna, Austria
116
SUBATECH, IMT Atlantique, Université de Nantes, CNRS-IN2P3, Nantes, France
117
Suranaree University of Technology, Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand
118
Technical University of Košice, Kosice, Slovakia
119
Technical University of Split FESB, Split, Croatia
120
The Henryk Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Kraców, Poland
121
Physics Department, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA
122
Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa, Culiacán, Mexico
123
Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, Brazil
124
Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), Campinas, Brazil
125
Universidade Federal do ABC, Santo Andre, Brazil
126
University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA
127
University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
128
University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
129
University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA
130
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
131
University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
132
University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan
133
University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
134
Université de Lyon, Université Lyon 1, CNRS/IN2P3, IPN-Lyon, Villeurbanne, Lyon, France
135
Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, IPHC UMR 7178, 67000, Strasbourg, France
136
Università degli Studi di Pavia, Pavia, Italy
137
Università di Brescia, Brescia, Italy
138
V. Fock Institute for Physics, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia
139
Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre, Kolkata, India
140
Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland
141
Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA
142
Wigner Research Centre for Physics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
143
Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
144
Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea
145
Zentrum für Technologietransfer und Telekommunikation (ZTT), Fachhochschule Worms, Worms, Germany
146
CERN, 1211, Geneva 23, Switzerland
* e-mail: alice-publications@cern.ch
Received:
1
March
2017
Accepted:
5
May
2017
Published online:
22
May
2017
The invariant differential cross sections for inclusive 
and mesons at midrapidity were measured in pp collisions at 
TeV for transverse momenta 
GeV/c and 
GeV/c, respectively, using the ALICE detector. This large range in 
was achieved by combining various analysis techniques and different triggers involving the electromagnetic calorimeter (EMCal). In particular, a new single-cluster, shower-shape based method was developed for the identification of high- neutral pions, which exploits that the showers originating from their decay photons overlap in the EMCal. Above 4 GeV/
, the measured cross sections are found to exhibit a similar power-law behavior with an exponent of about 6.3. Next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD calculations differ from the measured cross sections by about 30% for the , and between 30–50% for the meson, while generator-level simulations with PYTHIA 8.2 describe the data to better than 10–30%, except at 
GeV/. The new data can therefore be used to further improve the theoretical description of and meson production.
© CERN for the benefit of the ALICE collaboration, 2017
