Comparison of inclusive fractional momentum distributions of quark and gluon jets produced ine+e− annihilation

Inclusive charged particle production ine+e− annihilation into hadrons is studied in terms of the particle fractional momentumx p . Thex p distribution for gluon jets is extracted by comparing two data samples measured in the TASSO detector: nearly symmetric three jet events at centre-of-mass energyW∼35 GeV and two jet events atW∼22 GeV, yielding quark and gluon jets of similar energies (∼11.5 GeV). No significant difference is observed between quark and gluon jets. Monte Carlo models based on parton showers describe the trend and energy variation of the data better than a model with second order matrix element in α s .