Study of neutral meson production with photon conversions in the MPD experiment at NICA

The MPD experiment is aimed to study strongly interacting matter in nucleus-nucleus collisions at the future NICA collider in the energy range 4-11 GeV per nucleon pair. Neutral pion and η measurements via two-photon decays will allow the MPD experiment to extend the variety of registered particle species and will provide important information on dynamics and properties of the medium created in heavy ion collisions at NICA energies. The measurement of neutral pion and η meson spectra is also important as a first step towards the analysis of thermal photons sensitive to the temperature of the produced medium. In this contribution, the feasibility of neutral meson production measurements in the two-photon channel via photon conversions will be presented, and implications for the study of thermal photons will be discussed. (paper)