Nuclear Modification of $\pi^0$ Production in OO Collisions with ALICE

Abstract

We present the first results on the $\pi^0$ nuclear modification factor $R_{OO}$ in OO collisions at LHC energies by the ALICE experiment. The measurement of the modification of hadron production in nuclear collisions compared to a vacuum baseline in pp collisions is a valuable probe for parton energy loss in the hot medium. The ALICE $R_{OO}$ results show significant (up to 4$\sigma$) suppression of $\pi^0$ production in OO collisions compared to the pp reference, and up to 2.4$\sigma$ deviation w.r.t. model predictions that include only cold nuclear matter effects.