Sunday, November 20, 2011

Energy Boost From Shock Front

Main Components of CNGS
A 400 GeV/c proton beam is extracted from the SPS in 10.5 microsecond short pulses of 2.4x1013 protons per pulse. The proton beam is transported through the transfer line TT41 to the CNGS target T40. The target consists of a series of graphite rods, which are cooled by a recirculated helium flow. Secondary pions and kaons of positive charge produced in the target are focused into a parallel beam by a system of two pulsed magnetic lenses, called horn and reflector. A 1 km long evacuated decay pipe allows the pions and kaons to decay into their daughter particles - of interest here is mainly the decay into muon-neutrinos and muons. The remaining hadrons (protons, pions, kaons) are absorbed in an iron beam dump with a graphite core. The muons are monitored in two sets of detectors downstream of the dump. Further downstream, the muons are absorbed in the rock while the neutrinos continue their travel towards Gran Sasso.microsecond short pulses of 2.4x1013 protons per
 For me it has been an interesting journey in trying to understand the full context of a event in space sending information through out the cosmos in ways that are not limited to the matter configurations that would affect signals of those events.

In astrophysics, the most widely discussed mechanism of particle acceleration is the first-order Fermi process operating at collisionless shocks. It is based on the idea that particles undergo stochastic elastic scatterings both upstream and downstream of the shock front. This causes particles to wander across the shock repeatedly. On each crossing, they receive an energy boost as a result of the relative motion of the upstream and downstream plasmas. At non-relativistic shocks, scattering causes particles to diffuse in space, and the mechanism, termed "diffusive shock acceleration," is widely thought to be responsible for the acceleration of cosmic rays in supernova remnants. At relativistic shocks, the transport process is not spatial diffusion, but the first-order Fermi mechanism operates nevertheless (for reviews, see Kirk & Duffy 1999; Hillas 2005). In fact, the first ab initio demonstrations of this process using particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations have recently been presented for the relativistic case (Spitkovsky 2008b; Martins et al. 2009; Sironi & Spitkovsky 2009).
Several factors, such as the lifetime of the shock front or its spatial extent, can limit the energy to which particles can be accelerated in this process. However, even in the absence of these, acceleration will ultimately cease when the radiative energy losses that are inevitably associated with the scattering process overwhelm the energy gains obtained upon crossing the shock. Exactly when this happens depends on the details of the scattering process. See: RADIATIVE SIGNATURES OF RELATIVISTIC SHOCKS

So in soliton expressions while trying to find such an example here in the blog does not seem to be offering itself in the animations of the boat traveling down the channel we are so familiar with that for me this was the idea of the experimental processes unfolding at LHC. The collision point creates shock waves\particle sprays as Jets?


Soliton


Solitary wave in a laboratory wave channel.
In mathematics and physics, a soliton is a self-reinforcing solitary wave (a wave packet or pulse) that maintains its shape while it travels at constant speed. Solitons are caused by a cancellation of nonlinear and dispersive effects in the medium. (The term "dispersive effects" refers to a property of certain systems where the speed of the waves varies according to frequency.) Solitons arise as the solutions of a widespread class of weakly nonlinear dispersive partial differential equations describing physical systems. The soliton phenomenon was first described by John Scott Russell (1808–1882) who observed a solitary wave in the Union Canal in Scotland. He reproduced the phenomenon in a wave tank and named it the "Wave of Translation".

So in a sense the shock front\horn for me in respect of Gran Sasso is the idea that such a front becomes a dispersive element in medium expression of earth to know that such densities in earth have a means by which we can measure relativist interpretations as assign toward density determinations in the earth.  Yet,  there are things not held to this distinction so know that they move on past such targets so as to show cosmological considerations are just as relevant today as they are while we set up the experimental avenues toward identifying this relationship here on earth.

 For more than a decade, scientists have seen evidence that the three known types of neutrinos can morph into each other. Experiments have found that muon neutrinos disappear, with some of the best measurements provided by the MINOS experiment. Scientists think that a large fraction of these muon neutrinos transform into tau neutrinos, which so far have been very hard to detect, and they suspect that a tiny fraction transform into electron neutrinos. See: Fermilab experiment weighs in on neutrino mystery

When looking out at the universe such perspective do not hold relevant for those not looking past the real toward the abstract? To understand the distance measure of binary star of Taylor and Hulse,  such signals need to be understood in relation to what is transmitted out into the cosmos? How are we measuring that distance? For some who are even more abstractedly gifted they may see the waves generated in gravitational expression. So this becomes a means which which to ask if the binary stars are getting closer then how is this distance measured? You see?


Measurement of the neutrino velocity with the OPERA detectorin the CNGS beam 





Friday, November 18, 2011

Culture jamming



See: Culture Jamming

***

Culture jamming, coined in 1984,[1][2][3] denotes a tactic used by many anti-consumerist social movements[4] to disrupt or subvert mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. Guerrilla semiotics and night discourse are sometimes used synonymously with the term culture jamming.[5][6]
Culture jamming is often seen as a form of subvertising. Many culture jams are intended to expose apparently questionable political assumptions behind commercial culture. Common tactics include re-figuring logos, fashion statements, and product images as a means to challenge the idea of "what's cool" along with assumptions about the personal freedoms of consumption.[7]

Culture jamming sometimes entails transforming mass media to produce ironic or satirical commentary about itself, using the original medium's communication method. Culture jamming is usually employed in opposition to a perceived appropriation of public space, or as a reaction against social conformity. Prominent examples of culture jamming include the adulteration of billboard advertising by the BLF and Ron English and the street parties and protests organised by Reclaim the Streets. While most culture jamming focuses on subverting or critiquing political or advertising messages, some practitioners focus on a more positive, musically inspired form of jamming that brings together artists, scholars and activists to create new forms of cultural production that transcend rather than merely criticize or negate the status quo.[8]

Contents

 Origins of the term, etymology and history

 1984 Coinage

The term was coined in 1984 by the sound collage band Negativland, with the release of their album JamCon '84.[1][2][3] The phrase "culture jamming" comes from the idea of radio jamming:[2] that public frequencies can be pirated and subverted for independent communication, or to disrupt dominant frequencies.[9] In one of the tracks of the album, they declared:[2]
As awareness of how the media environment we occupy affects and directs our inner life grows, some resist. The skillfully reworked billboard . . . directs the public viewer to a consideration of the original corporate strategy. The studio for the cultural jammer is the world at large.

 Origins and preceding influences

 

According to Vince Carducci, although the term was coined by Negativland, culture jamming can be traced as far back as the 1950s.[10] One particularly influential group that was active in Europe was the Situationist International and was led by Guy Debord. Their main argument was based on the idea that in the past humans dealt with life and the consumer market directly. They argued that this spontaneous way of life was slowly deteriorating as a direct result of the new "modern" way of life. Situationists saw everything from television to radio as a threat.[11]

The cultural critic Mark Dery traces the origins of culture jamming to medieval carnival, which Mikhail Bakhtin interpreted, in Rabelais and his World, as an officially sanctioned subversion of the social hierarchy.[citation needed] Modern precursors might include: the media-savvy agit-prop of the anti-Nazi photomonteur John Heartfield, the sociopolitical street theater and staged media events of '60s radicals such as Abbie Hoffman, the German concept of Spaßguerilla, and in the Situationist International (SI) of the 1950s and '60s.[citation needed] The SI first compared its own activities to radio jamming in 1968, when it proposed the use of guerrilla communication within mass media to sow confusion within the dominant culture.[citation needed]

Mark Dery's New York Times article on culture jamming, The Merry Pranksters And the Art of the Hoax[2] was the first mention, in the mainstream media, of the phenomenon; Dery later expanded on this article in his 1993 Open Magazine pamphlet, Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing, and Sniping in the Empire of the Signs,[12] a seminal essay that remains the most exhaustive historical, sociopolitical, and philosophical theorization of culture jamming to date. Adbusters, a Canadian publication espousing an environmentalist critique of consumerism, began promoting aspects of culture jamming after Dery introduced editor Kalle Lasn to the term through a series of articles he wrote for the magazine. In her critique of consumerism, "No Logo", the Canadian cultural commentator and political activist Naomi Klein examines culture jamming in a chapter that cites Dery and focuses on the work of Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada.

 Tactics

 


Graffitied billboard in Cambridge, UK
Culture jamming is a form of disruption that plays on the emotions of viewers and bystanders. Jammers want to disrupt the unconscious thought process that takes place when most consumers view a popular advertising and bring about a détournement.[11] Activists that utilize this tactic are counting on their meme to pull on the emotional strings of people and evoke some type of reaction. The reactions that most cultural jammers are hoping to evoke are behavioral change and political action. There are four emotions that activists often want viewers to feel. These emotions – shock, shame, fear, and anger, are believed to be the catalysts for social change.[13]

The basic unit in which a message is transmitted in culture jamming is the meme. Memes are condensed images that stimulate visual, verbal, musical, or behavioral associations that people can easily imitate and transmit to others. The term meme was first popularized by geneticist Richard Dawkins but later used by cultural critics such as Douglas Rushkoff that claimed memes were a type of media virus.[14] Memes are seen as genes that can jump from outlet to outlet and replicate themselves or mutate upon transmission just like a virus.[15] Culture jammers will often use common memes to such as the McDonald's golden arches or Nike swoosh to engage people and force them to think about their eating habits or fashion sense.[16] In one example, jammer Jonah Perreti used the Nike symbol to stir debate on sweatshop child labor and consumer freedom. Perreti made public exchanges between himself and Nike over a disagreement. Perreti had requested custom Nikes with the word "sweatshop" placed in the Nike symbol. Nike naturally disagreed. Once this story was made public over Perreti's website it spread world wide and sparked conversation and dialogue about Nike's use of sweatshops.[16] Jammers can also organize and participate in mass campaigns. Examples of cultural jamming like Perreti's are more along the lines of tactics that radical consumer social movements would use. These movements push people to question the taken-for-granted assumption that consuming is natural and good and aim to disrupt the naturalization of consumer culture; they also seek to create systems of production and consumption that are more humane and less dominated by global corporate hypercapitalism.[17] Past mass events and ideas have included "Buy Nothing Day", "Digital Detox Week", virtual sit-ins and protests over the Internet, producing ‘subvertisements’ and placing them in public spaces, and creating and enacting ‘placejamming’ projects where public spaces are reclaimed and nature is re-introduced into urban places.[18]

The most effective form of jamming is to use an already widely recognizable meme to transmit the message. Once viewers are forced to take a second look at the mimicked popular meme they are forced out of their comfort zone. Viewers are presented with another way to view the meme and forced to think about the implications presented by the jammer.[11] More often than not, when this is used as a tactic the jammer is going for shock value. For example, to make consumers aware of the negative body image that big name apparel brands are causing, a subvertisement of Calvin Klein's 'Obsession' was created and played world wide. It depicted a young woman with an eating disorder throwing up into a toilet.[19]

Another way that social consumer movements hope to utilize culture jamming effectively is by employing a metameme. A metameme is a two-level message that punctures a specific commercial image, but does so in a way that challenges some larger aspect of the political culture of corporate domination.[16] An example would be the "true cost" campaign set in motion by Adbusters. "True Cost" forced consumers to compare the human labor cost and conditions and environmental drawbacks of products to the sales costs. Another example would be the "Truth" campaigns that frequented television in the past years that exposed the deception tobacco companies used to sell their products.

 Criticism

Culture jamming is sometimes confused with artistic appropriation or with acts of vandalism which have destruction or defacement as their primary goal. Although the end result is not always easily distinguishable from these activities, the intent of those participating in culture jamming differs from that of people whose intent is either artistic or merely destructive. The lines are not always clear-cut; some activities, notably street art, will fall into two or even all three categories.

Recently there have been arguments against the validity and effectiveness of culture jamming. Some argue that culture jamming is easily co-opted and commodified by the market, which tends to "defuse" its potential for consumer resistance.[20] Others posit that the culture jamming strategy of rhetorical sabotage, used by Adbusters, is easily incorporated and appropriated by clever advertising agencies, and thus is not a very powerful means of social change.[18] Yet other critics argue that without moving beyond mere critique to offering an alternative cultural, social and/or political economic vision, jams quickly lose their power and resonance.[8]

 List of culture jamming organizations or people

 See also

 Notes

  1. ^ a b Lloyd, Jan (2003) Culture Jamming: Semiotic Banditry in the Streets, in Cultural Studies Department: University of Canterbury, Christchurc
  2. ^ a b c d e Dery, Mark (1990)The Merry Pranksters And the Art of the Hoax, NYtimes article, December 23, 1990.
  3. ^ a b Dery, Mark (2010) New Introduction and revisited edition of Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing, and Sniping in the Empire of the Signs, October 8th, 2010
  4. ^ Binay, Ayse (2005) `Investigating the Anti-consumerism Movement in North America: The Case of Adbusters', unpublished dissertation, University of Texas.
  5. ^ Images of the street: planning, identity, and control in public space By Nicholas R. Fyfe, p.274
  6. ^ Gavin Grindon Aesthetics and Radical Politics, p.36
  7. ^ Boden, Sharon and Williams, Simon J. (2002) "Consumption and Emotion: The Romantic Ethic Revisited", Sociology 36(3):493–512
  8. ^ a b LeVine, Mark (2005) Why They Don't Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil. Oxford, UK: Oneworld Publications.
  9. ^ Disrupt Dominant Frequencies
  10. ^ Carducci, Vince (2006) "Culture Jamming: A Sociological Perspective", Journal of Consumer Culture 6(1): 116–38
  11. ^ a b c Lasn, Kalle (1999) Culture Jam: How to Reverse America's Suicidal Consumer Binge – And Why We Must. New York: HarperCollins
  12. ^ Dery, Mark (1993) Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing, and Sniping in the Empire of the Signs, in Open Magazine Pamphlet Series, 1993
  13. ^ Summers-Effler, Erika (2002) "The Micro Potential for Social Change: Emotion, Consciousness, and Social Movement Formation", Sociological Theory 20(1): 41–60
  14. ^ Rushkoff, Douglas (1996) Media Virus! New York: Ballantine
  15. ^ Dawkins, Richard (1989) The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press
  16. ^ a b c Center for Communication and Civic Engagement, Seattle, Washington Retrieved November 20, 2009
  17. ^ Princen, Thomas, Maniates, Michael and Conca, Ken (2002) Confronting Consumption. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  18. ^ a b Harold, Christine (2004) `Pranking Rhetoric: "Culture jamming" as Media Activism', Critical Studies in Media Communication 21(3): 189–211
  19. ^ Bordwell, Marilyn (2002) `Jamming Culture: Adbusters' Hip Media Campaign against Consumerism', in Thomas Princen, Michael Maniates and Ken Conca (eds) Confronting Consumption, pp. 237–53. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press
  20. ^ Rumbo, Jospeh D. (2002) "Consumer Resistance in a World of Advertising Clutter: The Case of Adbusters", Psychology & Marketing 19(2): 127–48.

 References

  • Dery, Mark (1993). Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing, and Sniping in the Empire of Signs. Open Magazine Pamphlet Series: NJ."Shovelware". Markdery.com. Retrieved 2009-07-23.
  • King, Donovan (2004). University of Calgary. Optative Theatre: A Critical Theory for Challenging Oppression and Spectacle
  • Klein, Naomi (2000). No Logo London: Flamingo.
  • Kyoto Journal: Culture Jammer's Guide to Enlightenment
  • Lasn, Kalle (1999) Culture Jam. New York: Eagle Brook.
  • LeVine, Mark (2005) Why They Don't Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil. Oxford, UK: Oneworld Publications.
  • Tietchen, T. Language out of Language: Excavating the Roots of Culture Jamming and Postmodern Activism from William S. Burroughs' Nova Trilogy Discourse: Berkeley Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture. 23, Part 3 (2001): 107–130.
  • Tarantino, A (2011): Seattle Street Art – A Visual Time Capsule Beyond Graffiti, Createspace, ISBN 061545190X

External links

Occupy Wall Street



So what are your thoughts on Occupy Wall Street ?

Sorry for all the links but they have been put out in order for some to understand the larger context. There has been something seriously wrong in our societies for a while now…but of course this is just my opinion.

Screen capture from Adbusters' first uncommercial.


The roots of this discontent I think go back much further then what some of us realize? The Adbusters Media Foundation

Also, have you ever read RECLAIMING THE COMMONS or, THE CRISES OF DEMOCRATIC CAPITALISM

If last two links do not work.....using what's called the WayBack Machine the links can be accessed here through typing url links supplied above there

If one wanted to disadvantage society even more from learning of the historical footprints that we have established,  then,  what better way but to wipe out the memory. So lets watch out for that . The Wayback Machine.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Point Particles and String Amplitudes



For myself understanding the dimensional relationship toward the QFT perspective of particle research and development,  it has been a difficult road to understanding this relation. It is not just the idea of what transpires as we architecturally build the world\universe we live in,  but to understand nature's expression as we see the movement in the universe as we research and experimental with particle  decay products.


Click on Image to go to appropriate site for image dedication

So there is a lot being said about what is contained in the first paragraph of this opening blog post that will never be understood by other layman like myself, or, other experts considering the developmental phases I have been going through. Are my  ruminations consistent,  or,  have they haphazardly layered a trail of confusion  to have it said that what danger lurks in this determination of what is written here is to confuse.

Should I put aside all that I have learn in context of theoretical developments?


Albrecht Dürer(self portrait at 28) See also: Albrecht Durer and His Magic Square


No.  I can assure you that I have been at this a number of years now to say that with what I am doing now is filling  in the gaps of where I have been to where I am going in terms of better explaining myself in a scientific context that is acceptable to the notion of what might have transpired in the 21 st century for some. It has been in learning string theory.  Yes, I have listened to all the articulations of the back and forth of what the basis of this theoretical determination is "as a mathematical foundation"  has yet to prove it''s validity as a method by which to explain the nature of the universe?

 
Physicists Andrew Strominger and Cumrin Vafa, showed that this exact entropy formula can be derived microscopically (including the factor of 1/4) by counting the degeneracy of quantum states of configurations of strings and D-branes which correspond to black holes in string theory. This is compelling evidence that D-branes can provide a short distance weak coupling description of certain black holes! For example, the class of black holes studied by Strominger and Vafa are described by 5-branes, 1-branes and open strings traveling down the 1-brane all wrapped on a 5-dimensional torus, which gives an effective one dimensional object -- a black hole. 


How am I to dismiss the logic of approach? We are learning to count in dimensional referencing? It is mathematically orientated is it not? But indeed,  Planck scale presents a problem.  So by what foundation can  it ever play as a method by which such discussion of the universe in expression? How can it have such validation as a geometrical expression of the nature of particle expression by virtue of the dimensional development along side of topological arrangement and correlations?


The crystalline state is the simplest known example of a quantum , a stable state of matter whose generic low-energy properties are determined by a higher organizing principle and nothing else. Prof. Robert B. Laughlin
 
This is just the road I took and it allowed me to see what can ever transpired as a expression of a understanding of symmetry breaking. It is an understanding of this correlation toward the "false vacuum to the true."  This was an expression of the space we are "living in" as an understanding of the timing in relation to the expression of this universe. One just had to know indeed their was indeed a higher order? A Klein bottle perhaps in  following the lines on the surface?

 Using the anti–de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence to relate fermionic quantum critical fields to a gravitational problem, we computed the spectral functions of fermions in the field theory. By increasing the fermion density away from the relativistic quantum critical point, a state emerges with all the features of the Fermi liquid. See:String Theory, Quantum Phase Transitions, and the Emergent Fermi Liquid
What can we say then is emergent? So you are learning to count in geometrical expressions as a placement of the Genus figures? So what correlations can be drawn toward the beginning of such counting?

For me it was necessary to carry on the tradition of geometrical seeing what was revealed in relativity development(Grossman and Riemann) to know that such an expression had to be moved into the world of the very small.

The Landscape Again and again....


It had to have a relativistic interpretation of the way in which such energies could detail the understanding of particles in expression. But also, of the energies involved. So this "Royal road to geometry" in relation to topology,  had to be understood by myself as I understood the Genus placements in the valleys of expression. The landscape.

I knew where such new physics needs to be in relation to what is happening as we look at the experiments of LHC . Of course I have to better understand the Jet manifestation in order to reveal some of the thinking that has been produced in my journeys.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Two Dimensions

A diagram showing the first four spatial dimensions.

 The concept of dimension is not restricted to physical objects. High-dimensional spaces occur in mathematics and the sciences for many reasons, frequently as configuration spaces such as in Lagrangian or Hamiltonian mechanics; these are abstract spaces, independent of the physical space we live in.
 ***


Big Bang, Classic Confusions-

One of the most confusing things about the Big Bang is that it involves an expanding universe. Any reasonable person, hearing about the Big Bang, will imagine something that he or she has seen expanding: a cloud of smoke exploding outward, or a balloon expanding as it is filled with air. This is very natural. And having imagined this, the reasonable person will ask, “But what is the universe expanding into?”
 ***

 

Let's now start analysing a 2D case, that of the classic Flatland example, in which a person lives in a 2D universe and is only aware of two dimensions (shown as the blue grid), or plane, say in the x and y direction. Such a person can never conceive the meaning of height in the z direction, he cannot look up or down, and can see other 2D persons as shapes on the flat surface he lives in.


We cannot directly visualize a hypersphere for the very reason that it is a 4-dimensional object and goes beyond our senses. What we can visualize, however, is a hypersphere in the form of 3-dimensional slices (as is displayed to the left). A hypersphere is in essence an array of 3 dimensional solid spheres that increase and then decrease in size. This would represent our basic conception of the hypersphere, and is shown in the animated picture here.-

Understanding 4 dimensional space
Dimension (n)
Shape
Volume
Surface Area
2
circle
π r2
2πr
3
sphere
(4/3)π r3
4πr2
4
4-sphere
(1/2)π2 r4
2 r3
5
5-sphere
(8/15)π2 r5
(8/3)π2 r4
6
6-sphere
(1/6)π3 r6
π3 r5
7
7-sphere
(16/105)π3 r7
(16/15)π3 r6


See: Spacetime 101

Friday, November 11, 2011

Space Weather: Wind in Space

An X1.9 Flare at 2011 Nov 03 2027 UT!

 

Full SDO cadence (12 sec) movie of the M2.5 flare and associated CME from June 7,2011; composite of AIA wavelengths 211 (red channel), 193 (green), and 171 (blue); 05:00-13:00UTC; 2400 frames (300 frames per hour). Images are rotated 90 degrees for a normal aspect ratio. It took 236 GB of hard drive space, 5 minutes of programming, and about 9 hours of processing on a 2.26GHz quad-core to create this. More to come!

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Asymptotic freedom

 Witten: One thing I can tell you, though, is that most string theorist's suspect that spacetime is a emergent Phenomena in the language of condensed matter physics.

***
In physics, asymptotic freedom is a property of some gauge theories that causes interactions between particles to become arbitrarily weak at energy scales that become arbitrarily large, or, equivalently, at length scales that become arbitrarily small (at the shortest distances).

Asymptotic freedom is a feature of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the quantum field theory of the nuclear interaction between quarks and gluons, the fundamental constituents of nuclear matter. Quarks interact weakly at high energies, allowing perturbative calculations by DGLAP of cross sections in deep inelastic processes of particle physics; and strongly at low energies, preventing the unbinding of baryons (like protons or neutrons with three quarks) or mesons (like pions with two quarks), the composite particles of nuclear matter.

Asymptotic freedom was discovered by Frank Wilczek, David Gross, and David Politzer who in 2004 shared the Nobel Prize in physics.

***


Bag Model of Quark Confinement

In dealing with the nature of quark confinement, one visualization is that of an elastic bag which allows the quarks to move freely around, as long as you don't try to pull them further apart. But if you try to pull a quark out, the bag stretches and resists.

***

Robert Laughlin:The true origin of these rules is the tendancy of natural systems to organize themselves according to collective principles. Many phenomena in nature are like pointillist paintings. Observing the fine details yields nothing but meaningless fact. To correctly understand the painting one must step back and view it as a whole. In this situation a huge number of imperfect details can add up to larger entities of great perfection. We call this effect in the physical world emergence.

Article linked in quote is only a snapshot now?  But links work to specific pages. Maybe you will find appropriate quote?:) So it is nice to see the memory of things if if you try to erase them.

Wednesday, November 09, 2011

A Mysterious Dark Flow?

Dark flow is an astrophysical term describing a peculiar velocity of galaxy clusters. The actual measured velocity is the sum of the velocity predicted by Hubble's Law plus a small and unexplained (or dark) velocity flowing in a common direction.

According to standard cosmological models, the motion of galaxy clusters with respect to the cosmic microwave background should be randomly distributed in all directions. However, analyzing the three-year WMAP data using the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, the authors of the study found evidence of a "surprisingly coherent" 600–1000 km/s[1] flow of clusters toward a 20-degree patch of sky between the constellations of Centaurus and Vela.

The authors, Alexander Kashlinsky, F. Atrio-Barandela, D. Kocevski and H. Ebeling, suggest that the motion may be a remnant of the influence of no-longer-visible regions of the universe prior to inflation. Telescopes cannot see events earlier than about 380,000 years after the Big Bang, when the universe became transparent (the Cosmic Microwave Background); this corresponds to the particle horizon at a distance of about 46 billion (4.6×1010) light years. Since the matter causing the net motion in this proposal is outside this range, it would in a certain sense be outside our visible universe; however, it would still be in our past light cone.

The results appeared in the October 20, 2008, issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.[1][2][3] Since then, the authors have extended their analysis to additional clusters and the recently released WMAP five-year data.

***

This all-sky view of the entire near-infrared sky reveals the distribution of galaxies beyond the Milky Way and has been desaturated to serve as the background for the dark flow plots. The image is derived from the 2MASS Extended Source Catalog, which contains more than 1.5 million galaxies, and the Point Source Catalog, which holds nearly 500 million stars within the Milky Way. The galaxies are color coded for distances obtained by various surveys. The nearest sources are blue (redshifts less than 0.01), moderately distant sources (redshifts between 0.01 and 0.04) are green, and red represents the farthest sources that 2MASS resolves (between redshifts of 0.04 and 0.1).(click image for larger viewing)
***



Video showing direction of travel of galaxy clusters at four distances from Earth. The colored dots are clusters within one of four distance ranges, with redder colors indicating greater distance. Colored ellipses show the axis of bulk motion for clusters of the corresponding color. Images of representative galaxy clusters in each distance slice are also shown. Credit: NASA/GSFC/A. Kashlinsky et al.





Distant galaxy clusters mysteriously stream at a million miles per hour along a path roughly centered on the southern constellations Centaurus and Hydra. A new study led by Alexander Kashlinsky at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., tracks this collective motion -- dubbed the "dark flow" -- to twice the distance originally reported, out to more than 2.5 billion light-years.


The study used a new technique to determine the motion of X-ray-emitting galaxy clusters. The clusters appear to be moving along a line extending from our solar system toward Centaurus/Hydra, but the direction of this motion is less certain. Evidence indicates that the clusters are headed outward along this path, away from Earth, but the team cannot yet rule out the opposite flow.


The video shows the team's catalog of galaxy clusters separated into four "slices" representing different distance ranges. A colored ellipse shows the flow axis for the clusters within each slice. While the size and exact position of the ellipses vary, the overall trends show remarkable agreement. The video includes images of representative clusters in each distance slice.


The dark flow is controversial because the distribution of matter in the observed universe cannot account for it. Its existence suggests that some structure beyond the visible universe -- outside our "horizon" -- is pulling on matter in our vicinity. See: Dark Flow
***

See Also: Dark Energy, Dark Flow, and can  we explain it away?

Tuesday, November 08, 2011

Elementary Particles in the Decay Chain

 The general theory of relativity is as yet incomplete insofar as it has been able to apply the general principle of relativity satisfactorily only to gravitational fields, but not to the total field. We do not yet know with certainty by what mathematical mechanism the total field in space is to be described and what the general invariant laws are to which this total field is subject. One thing, however, seems certain: namely, that the general principal of relativity will prove a necessary and effective tool for the solution of the problem for the total field.Out of My Later Years, Pg 48, Albert Einstein (bold added for emphasis by me)

What anchors me to reality is the understanding that what will be displayed in the particle chain and here there was some debate in my mind.....literately..... I seem to be questioning whether this decay chain or elementary connection should even be described as a chain. What had me thinking this way is how pervasive we could say energy is inclusive as a statement that we might say the chain of events lists all that is of value in that energy disposition. Cosmic Ray Spallation,  or Jet, seemed fitting to me that such articulation of the collision process would have amounted to so many descriptions of the one thing contained in the dissipation of energy.



I am not even sure of what I am talking about here.....but as most times my mind seems to be working even while I am suppose to be asleep. I catch the tail end of things and and do you think it is ever clear what it is I am after in my understanding to know that I could write it all down and be so perfecting clear. And as a layman to boot,  how confusing I could make it for others.

Once produced, the neutral Xi-sub-b (Symbol for Xi-sub-b) particle travels about a millimeter before it disintegrates into two particles: the short-lived, positively charged Xi-sub-c (Symbol Xi-sub-c^+) and a long-lived, negative pion (π-). The Xi-sub-c then promptly decays into a pair of long-lived pions and a Xi particle (Symbol pi^-), which lives long enough to leave a track in the silicon vertex system (SVX) of the CDF detector before it decays a pion and a Lambda (Λ). The Lambda particle, which has no electric charge, can travel several centimeters before decaying into a proton (p) and a pion (π). Credit: CDF collaboration and Fermi

Well such things start often by the exposure of the many pictures that I have captured on the internet in order to understand that such decay chains are relevant I think in how we see the development of the hierarchy of energy used to determine particle collisions. Of course I am not a scientist so I have to be really careful here.

Six of the particles in the Standard Model are quarks (shown in purple). Each of the first three columns forms a generation of matter.

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So while I am never completely sure in my entirety the journey through science can I say has been with such consistency? Could I say my classroom has been all over the place and my enduring appeal for knowledge could have been the dissemination of so many wrong things.

I truly do not understand at what point that I started to be the convert to a relativistic discretion of the world as a legitimate expression of the universe contained in our undertaking of the decay chain. Is this what the debating is all about in my mind as I wrestle to explain where I have been and where I am going?

Foundations of Big Bang Cosmology




So for me what does this all have to do with the basis of how we might look at the cosmos and see such description will help us form a geometrical presence of the universe to know that we are using a relativistic interpretation to actually help us to describe the nature of expression of the universe as Omega.


Friedman Equation What is pdensity.
What are the three models of geometry? k=-1, K=0, k+1
Omega=the actual density to the critical density
If we triangulate Omega, the universe in which we are in, Omegam(mass)+ Omega(a vacuum), what position geometrically, would our universe hold from the coordinates given? See: Non Euclidean Geometry and the Universe

So while I am working to be consistent with the understanding of dimensional representation of the universe one may see how I have catapulted myself past the euclidean description of the world to move into the relativistic realm of expression based in  geometrical expressions. This allowed me to contained my views on Cherenkov as relativistic expressions detailed in an area that one may of assigned to missing energy events.


Further it may be of some help to understand that by "developing an theorem for particulate expression in relation to dimensional attribution" was significant to me (degrees of freedom) to have such development along side of the development of geometry as a viable approach to furthering our looking into the very nature of the world in which we live.  Genus figure descriptions contained in the valley have to be developed in relation to how we see possible expression, as a sign of the pencil falling one way or how a stone may roll down a hill, as a asymmetrical expression of the way in which the universe began and developed along the decay chain of energy dissipation?

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Sunday, November 06, 2011

LHC trials proton–lead collisions

Juggling magnetic fields to collide protons and lead

Physicists at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are analysing the results of their first attempt at colliding protons and lead ions. Further attempts at proton–lead collisions are expected over the next few weeks. If these trials are successful, a full-blown experimental programme could run in 2012.

Since the Geneva lab began experiments with the LHC in 2009, it has mostly been used to send two beams of protons in opposite directions around the 27 km accelerator, with the hope of spotting, among other things, the Higgs boson in the resulting collisions. Two beams of lead ions have also been smashed into each other in order to recreate the hot dense matter, known as a quark–gluon plasma, that was present in the early universe.

But to fully understand the results of such collisions, physicists need to know the properties of the lead ions before they collide. That is, their "cold state" before vast amounts of heat are released by the collisions. One way to do this, according to Urs Wiedemann at CERN, is to collide protons with lead ions.See:LHC trials proton–lead collisions
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A lead-ion collision as recorded by the CMS detector at the LHC. © CERN for the benefit of the CMS collaboration.

 The LHC has been smashing lead ions since Sunday, and physicists from the ALICE, ATLAS and CMS experiments are working around the clock to analyze the aftermath of these heavy-ion collisions at record energies and temperatures.* Last week we walked you through the process of creating, accelerating and colliding lead ions. Now we’ll talk about the big question: Why spend one month each year colliding heavy ions in the LHC?See:LHC basics: What we can learn from lead-ion collisions

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LHC finishes 2011 proton run