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In particle physics, hadronization is the process of the formation of hadrons out of quarks and gluons. This occurs after high-energy collisions in a particle collider in which free quarks or gluons are created. Due to colour confinement, these cannot exist individually. In the Standard Model they combine with quarks and antiquarks spontaneously created from the vacuum to form hadrons. The details of this process are not yet fully understood. Another model is the Lund string model.

The tight cone of particles created by the hadronization of a single quark is called a jet. Jets are observed in particle detectors, rather than quarks, whose existence must be inferred.

Hadronization also occurred shortly after the Big Bang when the quark-gluon plasma cooled to the temperature below which free quarks and gluons cannot exist (about 170 MeV). The quarks and gluons then combined into hadrons.

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