Nuclear modification factor of light neutral-meson spectra up to high transverse momentum in p–Pb collisions at TeV

Neutral pion (${\pi }^{0}$) and η meson production cross sections were measured up to unprecedentedly high transverse momenta (${p}_{T}$) in p–Pb collisions at $\sqrt{{s}_{\mathrm{NN}}}=8.16\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}\text{TeV}$. The mesons were reconstructed via their two-photon decay channel in the rapidity interval $-1.310$ GeV/c, leaving essentially no room for final state energy loss. The new data provide strong constraints for nuclear parton distribution and fragmentation functions over a broad kinematic range and are compared to model predictions as well as previous results at $\sqrt{{s}_{\mathrm{NN}}}=5.02\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}\text{TeV}$.