Differences in high $p_t$ meson production between CERN SPS and RHIC heavy ion collisions

In this talk we present a perturbative QCD improved parton model calculation for light meson production in high energy heavy ion collisions. In order to describe the experimental data properly, one needs to augment the standard pQCD model by the transverse momentum distribution of partons ("intrinsic k_T"). Proton-nucleus data indicate the presence of nuclear shadowing and multiscattering effects. Further corrections are needed in nucleus-nucleus collisions to explain the observed reduction of the cross section. We introduce the idea of proton dissociation and compare our calculations with the SPS and RHIC experimental data.