The role of in-medium color flow for high-pT particle production in AA collisions

Abstract

The suppression of high-pT single-hadron spectra in heavy-ion collisions is usually interpreted as due to parton energy loss of high-momentum quarks and gluons propagating in the plasma. Here, we discuss to what extent this partonic picture must be complemented by a picture of medium-modified hadronization. In particular, we show how color exchange with the medium modifies the properties of color-singlet clusters arising from the parton branchings, producing a softening of the hadron spectra.