Particle production in p-Pb collisions with ALICE at the LHC

Measurements of the transverse momentum spectra of light flavor particles at intermediate and high pT are an important tool for QCD studies. In pp collisions they provide a baseline for perturbative QCD, while in Pb-Pb they are used to investigate the suppression caused by the surrounding medium. In p-Pb collisions, such measurements provide a reference to disentangle final from initial state effects and thus play an important role in the search for signatures of the formation of a deconfined hot medium. While the comparison of the p-Pb and Pb-Pb data indicates that initial state effects do not play a role in the suppression of hadron production observed at high pT in heavy ion collisions, several measurements of particle production in the low and intermediate pT region indicate the presence of collective effects.