Medium-induced color flow softens hadronization
  Medium-induced parton energy loss, resulting from gluon exchanges between the QCD matter and partonic projectiles, is expected to underly the strong suppression of jets and high-$p_T$ hadron spectra observed in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions. Here, we present the first color-differential calculation of parton energy loss. We find that color exchange between medium and projectile enhances the invariant mass of energetic color singlet clusters in the parton shower by a parametrically large factor proportional to the square root of the projectile energy. This effect is seen in more than half of the most energetic color-singlet fragments of medium-modified parton branchings. Applying a standard cluster hadronization model, we find that it leads to a characteristic additional softening of hadronic spectra. A fair description of the nuclear modification factor measured at the LHC may then be obtained for relatively low momentum transfers from the medium. 
A. Beraudo, J.G. Milhano and U.A. Wiedemann
hep-ph nucl-th