The first order correction to the parton fragmentation functions in a thermal medium is derived in the leading logarithmic approximationin the framework of thermal field theory. The medium-modified evolution equations of the parton fragmentation functions are also derived.It is shown that all infrared divergences, both linear and logarithmic,in the real processes are canceled among themselves and by corresponding virtual corrections. The evolution of the quark number and the energy loss (or gain) induced by the thermal medium are investigated.

Within the framework of the constituent quark model, it is shown that the single hadron fragmentation function of a parton can be expressed as a convolution of shower diquark or triquark distribution function and quark recombination probability, if the interference between amplitudes of quark recombination with different momenta is neglected.The recombination probability is determined by the hadron's wavefunction in the constituent quark model. The shower diquark or triquark distribution functions of a fragmenting jet are defined in terms of overlapping matrices of constituent quarks and parton field operators. They are similar in form to dihadron or trihadron fragmentation functions in terms of parton operator and hadron states. Extending the formalism to the field theory at finite temperature, we automatically derive contributions to the effective single hadron fragmentation function from the recombination of shower and thermal constituent quarks. Such contributions involve single or diquark distribution functions which in turn can be related to diquark or triquark distribution functions via sum rules. We also derive QCD evolution equations for quark distribution functions that in turn determine the evolution of the effective jet fragmentation functions in a thermal medium.

Multiple scattering, induced radiative energy loss and modified fragmentation functions of a heavy quark in nuclear matter are studied within the framework of generalized factorization in perturbative QCD. Modified heavy quark fragmentation functions and energy loss are derived in detail with illustration of the mass dependencies of the Landau-Pomeranchuk-Migdal interference effects and heavy quark energy loss. Due to the quark mass dependence of the gluon formation time, the nuclear size dependencies of nuclear modification of the heavy quark fragmentation function and heavy quark energy loss are found to change from a linear to a quadratic form when the initial energy and momentum scale are increased relative to the quark mass. The radiative energy loss of the heavy quark is also significantly suppressed due to limited cone of gluon radiation imposed by the mass. Medium modification of the heavy quark fragmentation functions is found to be limited to the large z region due to the form of heavy quark fragmentation functions in vacuum.