Using hadronic jets in electron-positron annihilation, we suggest a simple and model-independent method to see the differences between quark and gluon jets. We define and analyze special energy-dependent moments of jets and choose those which are the most characteristic of the jet type. The main advantages of our method are that it handles the energy of a jet in an adequate way and studies a large part of the two- and three-jet events without strong cuts, thus reaching very high statistics. We clarify that the lack of these two features is the reason why studying this problem by some other methods led to inconclusive results.

• Received 25 September 1989

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.41.1726