Abstract: The differential yields of charged particles having pseudorapidity within |?| < 1 are measured using xenon-xenon (XeXe) collisions at sNN=5.44 TeV. The data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3.42 ?b?1, were collected in 2017 by the CMS experiment at the LHC. The yields are reported as functions of collision centrality and transverse momentum, pT, from 0.5 to 100 GeV. A previously reported pT spectrum from proton-proton collisions at s=5.02 TeV is used for comparison after correcting for the difference in center-of-mass energy. The nuclear modification factors using this reference, RAA *, are constructed and compared to previous measurements and theoretical predictions. In head-on collisions, the RAA * has a value of 0.17 in the pT range of 6?8 GeV, but increases to approximately 0.7 at 100 GeV. Above ?6 GeV, the XeXe data show a notably smaller suppression than previous results for lead-lead (PbPb) collisions at sNN=5.02 TeV when compared at the same centrality (i.e., the same fraction of total cross section). However, the XeXe suppression is slightly greater than that for PbPb in events having a similar number of participating nucleons.
