Light neutral meson production in the era of precision physics at the LHC

The production of light neutral mesons in different collision systems is interesting for a variety ofreasons: In nucleus-nucleus (AA) collisions the measurements provide important information onthe energy loss of partons traversing the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) which is formed in heavyion collisions at the LHC. In proton–proton (pp) collisions, neutral mesons allow us to test withhigh precision the predictions of perturbative QCD and other model calculations, and also serveas a reference for pA and AA collisions. In pA collisions, cold nuclear matter effects are studied.In the ALICE experiment, which is dedicated to the study of the QGP, neutral mesons can bedetected via their decay to two photons. The latter can be reconstructed using the two calorimetersEMCal and PHOS or via conversions in the detector material.Combining state-of-the-art reconstruction techniques with the large data sample delivered by theLHC in Run 2 gives us the opportunity to enhance the precision of our measurements. In theseproceedings, an overview of neutral meson production in pp, p–Pb and Pb–Pb collisions at LHCenergies, as measured with the ALICE detector is presented.