What happens when gold atoms merge?

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I stumbled across this on youtube and wondered if someone could explain what we are actually looking at here.

Looks amazing!

 

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The authors themselves do their utmost

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0708/0708.1060.pdf

 

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I thought I might add this video (real time) of bunches of gold atoms merging, in this thread for avoidance of thread proliferation, if you like the top one you might like this one too;-


The ending is, errr..., 'unexpected'. :) Does it actually merge, or maybe it was ejected out of the screen?