Production of \(\omega \) mesons in pp collisions at \(\mathbf {\sqrt{s}=7\,\text {TeV}}\)
The invariant differential cross section of inclusive \(\omega (782)\) meson production at midrapidity ( \(|y|<0.5\) ) in pp collisions at \(\sqrt{s}=7\,\hbox {TeV}\) was measured with the ALICE detector at the LHC over a transverse momentum range of \(2< p_{\mathrm {T}}< 17\,\hbox {GeV}/c\) . The \(\omega \) meson was reconstructed via its \(\omega \rightarrow \pi ^+\pi ^-\pi ^0\) decay channel. The measured \(\omega \) production cross section is compared to various calculations: PYTHIA 8.2 Monash 2013 describes the data, while PYTHIA 8.2 Tune 4C overestimates the data by about 50%. A recent NLO calculation, which includes a model describing the fragmentation of the whole vector-meson nonet, describes the data within uncertainties below \(6\,\hbox {GeV}/c\) , while it overestimates the data by up to 50% for higher \(p_{\mathrm {T}}\) . The \(\omega /\pi ^0\) ratio is in agreement with previous measurements at lower collision energies and the PYTHIA calculations. In addition, the measurement is compatible with transverse mass scaling within the measured \(p_{\mathrm {T}}\) range and the ratio is constant with \(C^{\omega /\pi ^{0}}= 0.67 \pm 0.03 \text {~(stat)~} \pm 0.04 \text {~(sys)~}\) above a transverse momentum of \(2.5\,\hbox {GeV}/c\) .