  The STAR Collaboration at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider reports the
first measurement of inclusive jet production in peripheral and central Au+Au
collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$=200 GeV. Jets are reconstructed with the
anti-k$_{T}$ algorithm using charged tracks with pseudorapidity $|\eta|<1.0$
and transverse momentum $0.2<p_{T,jet}^{ch}<30$ GeV/$c$, with jet resolution
parameter $R$=0.2, 0.3, and 0.4. The large background yield uncorrelated with
the jet signal is observed to be dominated by statistical phase space,
consistent with a previous coincidence measurement. This background is
suppressed by requiring a high-transverse-momentum (high-$p_T$) leading hadron
in accepted jet candidates. The bias imposed by this requirement is assessed,
and the $p_T$ region in which the bias is small is identified. Inclusive
charged-particle jet distributions are reported in peripheral and central Au+Au
collisions for $5<p_{T,jet}^{ch}<25$ GeV/$c$ and $5<p_{T,jet}^{ch}<30$ GeV/$c$,
respectively. The charged-particle jet inclusive yield is suppressed for
central Au+Au collisions, compared to both the peripheral Au+Au yield from this
measurement and to the $pp$ yield calculated using the PYTHIA event generator.
The magnitude of the suppression is consistent with that of inclusive hadron
production at high $p_T$, and that of semi-inclusive recoil jet yield when
expressed in terms of energy loss due to medium-induced energy transport.
Comparison of inclusive charged-particle jet yields for different values of $R$
exhibits no significant evidence for medium-induced broadening of the
transverse jet profile for $R<0.4$ in central Au+Au collisions. The measured
distributions are consistent with theoretical model calculations that
incorporate jet quenching.
