Neutral Meson and Direct Photon Measurements with the ALICE Experiment

The ALICE experiment is designed to study the properties of the matter created in proton-proton and heavy-ion collisions at the LHC. Neutral mesons can be reconstructed in ALICE in a wide range of transverse momenta via two-photon decays. Neutral meson measurements in pp collisions give an opportunity to validate the NLO or NNLO pQCD calculations and to constrain the parton distribution functions and the parton fragmentation functions. Neutral meson spectra measured in pA and AA collisions allow us to test a modification of the parton distribution functions in nuclei and the parton energy loss in the hot matter created in AA collisions. The recent results from ALICE on direct photon measurements in the Pb–Pb, neutral pion and n meson productions in pp, p-Pb, and Pb–Pb collisions are presented.