ar X iv : h ep - p h / 06 08 04 4 v 1 4 A ug 2 00 6 Time Evolution of Jets and Perturbative Color Neutralization

In-medium production of leading hadrons in hard reactions, carrying the main fraction of the jet momentum, involves two stages: (i) the parton originated from the hard process propagates through the medium radiating gluons due to the initial hard collision, as well as to multiple interactions in the medium; (ii) perturbative color neutralization, e.g. picking up an anti-colored parton produced perturbatively, followed by evolution and attenuation of the (pre)hadron in the medium. The color neutralization (or production) length for leading hadrons is controlled by coherence, energy conservation and Sudakov suppression. The pT -broadening is a sensitive and model independent probe for the production length. The color neutralization time is expected to shrink with rising hard scale. In particular, we found a very fast energy dissipation by a highly virtual parton: half of the jet energy is radiated during the first Fermi. Energy conservation makes the production of leading hadrons at longer times difficult.