https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-018-5612-8
Regular Article - Experimental Physics
and 
meson production in proton-proton collisions at 
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 and 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 Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados (CINVESTAV), Mexico City and Mérida, Mexico
11
Centro Fermi-Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche “Enrico Fermi’, Rome, Italy
12
Chicago State University, Chicago, IL, USA
13
China Institute of Atomic Energy, Beijing, China
14
COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT), Islamabad, Pakistan
15
Department of Physics, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India
16
Department of Physics, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA
17
Department of Physics, Pusan National University, Pusan, Republic of Korea
18
Department of Physics, Sejong University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
19
Department of Physics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
20
Department of Physics and Technology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
21
Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università ‘La Sapienza’ and Sezione INFN, Rome, Italy
22
Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università and Sezione INFN, Cagliari, Italy
23
Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università and Sezione INFN, Trieste, Italy
24
Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università and Sezione INFN, Turin, Italy
25
Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia dell’Università and Sezione INFN, Bologna, Italy
26
Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia dell’Università and Sezione INFN, Catania, Italy
27
Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia dell’Università and Sezione INFN, Padua, Italy
28
Dipartimento di Fisica ‘E.R. Caianiello’ dell’Università and Gruppo Collegato INFN, Salerno, Italy
29
Dipartimento DISAT del Politecnico and Sezione INFN, Turin, Italy
30
Dipartimento di Scienze e Innovazione Tecnologica dell’Università del Piemonte Orientale and INFN Sezione di Torino, Alessandria, Italy
31
Dipartimento Interateneo di Fisica ‘M. Merlin’ and Sezione INFN, Bari, Italy
32
Division of Experimental High Energy Physics, University of Lund, Lund, Sweden
33
European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Geneva, Switzerland
34
Excellence Cluster Universe, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany
35
Faculty of Engineering, Bergen University College, Bergen, Norway
36
Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia
37
Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic
38
Faculty of Science, P.J. Šafárik University, Kosice, Slovakia
39
Faculty of Technology, Buskerud and Vestfold University College, Tonsberg, Norway
40
Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
41
Gangneung-Wonju National University, Gangneung, Republic of Korea
42
Department of Physics, Gauhati University, Guwahati, India
43
Helmholtz-Institut für Strahlen- und Kernphysik, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, Bonn, Germany
44
Helsinki Institute of Physics (HIP), Helsinki, Finland
45
Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan
46
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT), Mumbai, India
47
Indian Institute of Technology Indore, Indore, India
48
Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Jakarta, Indonesia
49
INFN, Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Frascati, Italy
50
INFN, Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro, Legnaro, Italy
51
INFN, Sezione di Bari, Bari, Italy
52
INFN, Sezione di Bologna, Bologna, Italy
53
INFN, Sezione di Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy
54
INFN, Sezione di Catania, Catania, Italy
55
INFN, Sezione di Padova, Padua, Italy
56
INFN, Sezione di Roma, Rome, Italy
57
INFN, Sezione di Torino, Turin, Italy
58
INFN, Sezione di Trieste, Trieste, Italy
59
Inha University, Incheon, Republic of Korea
60
Institut de Physique Nucléaire d’Orsay (IPNO), Université Paris-Sud, CNRS-IN2P3, Orsay, France
61
Institute for Nuclear Research, Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
62
Institute for Subatomic Physics of Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
63
Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics, Moscow, Russia
64
Institute of Experimental Physics, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Kosice, Slovakia
65
Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czech Republic
66
Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar, India
67
Institute of Space Science (ISS), Bucharest, Romania
68
Institut für Informatik, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
69
Institut für Kernphysik, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
70
Institut für Kernphysik, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Münster, Germany
71
Instituto de Ciencias Nucleares, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico
72
Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, Brazil
73
Instituto de Física, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico
74
IRFU, CEA, Université Paris-Saclay, Saclay, France
75
iThemba LABS, National Research Foundation, Somerset West, South Africa
76
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), Dubna, Russia
77
Konkuk University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
78
Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information, Daejeon, Republic of Korea
79
KTO Karatay University, Konya, Turkey
80
Laboratoire de Physique Subatomique et de Cosmologie, Université Grenoble-Alpes, CNRS-IN2P3, Grenoble, France
81
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA
82
Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, Moscow, Russia
83
Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science, Nagasaki, Japan
84
Physics Department, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
85
National Centre for Nuclear Studies, Warsaw, Poland
86
National Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering, Bucharest, Romania
87
National Institute of Science Education and Research, HBNI, Jatni, India
88
National Nuclear Research Center, Baku, Azerbaijan
89
National Research Centre Kurchatov Institute, Moscow, Russia
90
Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
91
Nikhef, Nationaal instituut voor subatomaire fysica, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
92
Nuclear Physics Group, STFC Daresbury Laboratory, Daresbury, UK
93
Nuclear Physics Institute, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Řežu Prahy, Czech Republic
94
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, USA
95
Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, Gatchina, Russia
96
Physics Department, Creighton University, Omaha, NE, USA
97
Physics department, Faculty of science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
98
Physics Department, Panjab University, Chandigarh, India
99
Physics Department, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
100
Physics Department, University of Jammu, Jammu, India
101
Physics Department, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, India
102
Physikalisches Institut, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
103
Physikalisches Institut, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
104
Physik Department, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany
105
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
106
Research Division and ExtreMe Matter Institute EMMI, GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, Darmstadt, Germany
107
Rudjer Bošković Institute, Zagreb, Croatia
108
Russian Federal Nuclear Center (VNIIEF), Sarov, Russia
109
Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata, India
110
School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
111
Sección Física, Departamento de Ciencias, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Peru
112
SSC IHEP of NRC Kurchatov institute, Protvino, Russia
113
Stefan Meyer Institut für Subatomare Physik (SMI), Vienna, Austria
114
SUBATECH, IMT Atlantique, Université de Nantes, CNRS-IN2P3, Nantes, France
115
Suranaree University of Technology, Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand
116
Technical University of Košice, Kosice, Slovakia
117
Technical University of Split FESB, Split, Croatia
118
The Henryk Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Kraków, Poland
119
Physics Department, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA
120
Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa, Culiacán, Mexico
121
Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, Brazil
122
Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), Campinas, Brazil
123
Universidade Federal do ABC, Santo Andre, Brazil
124
University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA
125
University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
126
University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
127
University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA
128
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
129
University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
130
University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan
131
Université Clermont Auvergne, CNRS/IN2P3, LPC, Clermont-Ferrand, France
132
Université de Lyon, Université Lyon 1, CNRS/IN2P3, IPN-Lyon, Villeurbanne, Lyon, France
133
Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, IPHC UMR 7178, 67000, Strasbourg, France
134
Università degli Studi di Pavia, Pavia, Italy
135
Università di Brescia, Brescia, Italy
136
V. Fock Institute for Physics, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia
137
Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre, Kolkata, India
138
Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland
139
Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA
140
Wigner Research Centre for Physics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
141
Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
142
Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
143
Zentrum für Technologietransfer und Telekommunikation (ZTT), Fachhochschule Worms, Worms, Germany
144
CERN, 1211, Geneva 23, Switzerland
* e-mail: alice-publications@cern.ch
Received:
11
September
2017
Accepted:
2
February
2018
Published online:
26
March
2018
An invariant differential cross section measurement of inclusive and meson production at mid-rapidity in pp collisions at TeV was carried out by the ALICE experiment at the LHC. The spectra of and mesons were measured in transverse momentum ranges of 
and 
, respectively. Next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculations using fragmentation functions DSS14 for the and AESSS for the overestimate the cross sections of both neutral mesons, although such calculations agree with the measured 
ratio within uncertainties. The results were also compared with PYTHIA 8.2 predictions for which the Monash 2013 tune yields the best agreement with the measured neutral meson spectra. The measurements confirm a universal behavior of the ratio seen for NA27, PHENIX and ALICE data for pp collisions from 
GeV to TeV within experimental uncertainties. A relation between the and production cross sections for pp collisions at TeV is given by 
scaling for 
. However, a deviation from this empirical scaling rule is observed for transverse momenta below 
in the ratio with a significance of 
.
© CERN for the benefit of the ALICE collaboration, 2018
