Particles That Flock: Aczel's Scientific American Article

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the phenomena described in Aczel's article in Scientific American regarding particles that exhibit flocking behavior when produced in high-energy collisions. Participants explore the implications of this behavior, its occurrence under specific conditions, and the challenges in understanding the underlying mechanisms.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory, Technical explanation, Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants express curiosity about the requirement of a large number of particles (> 110) for the flocking phenomenon to occur and question how jets from hadronization were ruled out.
  • There is a mention that the events leading to flocking are rare, typically producing an order of magnitude fewer particles.
  • Participants note that the flocking behavior appears in a specific range of transverse momentum, which raises further questions about its nature.
  • One participant clarifies that the correlation discussed in the article involves pairs of particles emitted at the same azimuthal angle but at different angles with respect to the beam, contrasting this with short-range correlations produced by jets.
  • Another participant references a similar finding from Fermilab, suggesting a potential connection or parallel to the phenomena discussed.
  • One participant asserts that the Fermilab finding is fundamentally different from the flocking behavior described in the article.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express differing views on the nature of the flocking phenomenon and its relationship to jets, indicating that multiple competing interpretations exist. The discussion remains unresolved regarding the implications of these findings and their distinctions.

Contextual Notes

Participants highlight limitations in the article's detail, particularly regarding the technical aspects of the phenomena and the lack of references to primary research papers.

gendou2
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"Particles that Flock"

Aczel had an interesting article in Scientific American this month:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=particles-that-flock

The article doesn't go into much detail, but I found it odd that the phenomena only occurs when a large number of particles (> 110) are produced in a collision.

I wonder how they ruled out Jets from hadronization? Maybe the energies are too low.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_(particle_physics)

Has anyone seen any technical articles on the subject?
 
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Wow, science journalism is frustrating. The least they could do is link to the paper (see Vanadium's link, or equivalently http://arxiv.org/abs/arXiv:1009.4122). If I wasn't already familiar with it, I would have no idea what they were talking about.

gendou2 said:
The article doesn't go into much detail, but I found it odd that the phenomena only occurs when a large number of particles (> 110) are produced in a collision.

Yes, and note that these are fairly rare events. Normally there are an order of magnitude fewer particles produced. It also only shows up in a particular range of transverse momentum, which is also interesting.

gendou2 said:
I wonder how they ruled out Jets from hadronization? Maybe the energies are too low.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_(particle_physics)

The reason it's so interesting is that it can't be generated from jets. It's not clear in the article, but the correlation in question is between pairs of particles emitted at the same azimuthal angle, but at very different angles with respect to the beam. Jets produce short-range correlations between particles that all go in a similar direction (as well as correlations from back-to-back jets for particles coming out in opposite azimuthal directions.) That's what I would call "flocking", rather than the "ridge" correlation that they seem to be talking about in this article, which is quite different.
 


Thanks Vanadium, the_house!
 


No, that's totally different.
 

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