Study of the charge of leading hadrons in gluon and quark fragmentation

The electric charges of Leading Systems (defind by a rapidity gap) in quark and gluon jets are measured by the DELPHI collaboration and are compared with the results from Monte Carlo simulations which do not contain color-octet neutralistion processes. In the data an enhanced production of neutral Leading Systems compared to the Monte Carlo predictions is found in gluon jets. This excess is expected for color-octet neutralistion processes and it is located at low masses (≤2 GeV/c2) of the neutral Leading System. The quark jets are found to be in agreement with the simulation.