42,574 research outputs found
Cascade Size Distributions: Why They Matter and How to Compute Them Efficiently
Cascade models are central to understanding, predicting, and controlling
epidemic spreading and information propagation. Related optimization, including
influence maximization, model parameter inference, or the development of
vaccination strategies, relies heavily on sampling from a model. This is either
inefficient or inaccurate. As alternative, we present an efficient message
passing algorithm that computes the probability distribution of the cascade
size for the Independent Cascade Model on weighted directed networks and
generalizations. Our approach is exact on trees but can be applied to any
network topology. It approximates locally tree-like networks well, scales to
large networks, and can lead to surprisingly good performance on more dense
networks, as we also exemplify on real world data.Comment: Accepted at AAAI 202
The sounds of the Little and Big Bangs
Studies of heavy ion collisions have discovered that tiny fireballs of new
phase of matter -- quark gluon plasma (QGP) -- undergoes explosion, called the
Little Bang. In spite of its small size, it is not only well described by
hydrodynamics, but even small perturbations on top of the explosion turned to
be well described by hydrodynamical sound modes. The cosmological Big Bang also
went through phase transitions, the QCD and electroweak ones, which are
expected to produce sounds as well. We discuss their subsequent evolution and
hypothetical inverse acoustic cascade, amplifying the amplitude. Ultimately,
collision of two sound waves leads to formation of gravity waves, with the
smallest wavelength. We briefly discuss how those can be detected.Comment: This paper is a short semi-popular review describing some recent
developments in two very different fields, united by some common physics. It
was written for the Universe journa
Evidence for Hydrodynamic Evolution in Proton-Proton Scattering at LHC Energies
In scattering at LHC energies, large numbers of elementary scatterings
will contribute significantly, and the corresponding high multiplicity events
will be of particular interest. Elementary scatterings are parton ladders,
identified with color flux-tubes. In high multiplicity events, many of these
flux tubes are produced in the same space region, creating high energy
densities. We argue that there are good reasons to employ the successful
procedure used for heavy ion collisions: matter is assumed to thermalizes
quickly, such that the energy from the flux-tubes can be taken as initial
condition for a hydrodynamic expansion. This scenario gets spectacular support
from very recent results on Bose-Einstein correlations in scattering at
900 GeV at LHC.Comment: 11 pages, 20 figure
Supersymmetry and the LHC Inverse Problem
Given experimental evidence at the LHC for physics beyond the standard model,
how can we determine the nature of the underlying theory? We initiate an
approach to studying the "inverse map" from the space of LHC signatures to the
parameter space of theoretical models within the context of low-energy
supersymmetry, using 1808 LHC observables including essentially all those
suggested in the literature and a 15 dimensional parametrization of the
supersymmetric standard model. We show that the inverse map of a point in
signature space consists of a number of isolated islands in parameter space,
indicating the existence of "degeneracies"--qualitatively different models with
the same LHC signatures. The degeneracies have simple physical
characterizations, largely reflecting discrete ambiguities in electroweak-ino
spectrum, accompanied by small adjustments for the remaining soft parameters.
The number of degeneracies falls in the range 1<d<100, depending on whether or
not sleptons are copiously produced in cascade decays. This number is large
enough to represent a clear challenge but small enough to encourage looking for
new observables that can further break the degeneracies and determine at the
LHC most of the SUSY physics we care about. Degeneracies occur because
signatures are not independent, and our approach allows testing of any new
signature for its independence. Our methods can also be applied to any other
theory of physics beyond the standard model, allowing one to study how model
footprints differ in signature space and to test ways of distinguishing
qualitatively different possibilities for new physics at the LHC.Comment: 55 pages, 30 figure
Intranuclear cascade models lack dynamic flow
We study the recent claim that the intranuclear cascade model exhibits collective sidewards flow. 4000 intranuclear cascade simulations of the reaction Nb(400 MeV/nucleon)+Nb are performed employing bound and unbound versions of the Cugnon cascade. We show that instability of the target and projectile nuclei in the unbound cascade produces substantial spurious sidewards flow angles, for spectators as well as for participants. Once the nuclear binding is included, the peak of the flow angle distributions for the participants alone is reduced from 35° to 17°. The theoretical ‘‘data’’ are subjected to the experimental multiplicity and efficiency cuts of the plastic ball 4π electronic spectrometer system. The flow angular distributions obtained from the bound cascade—with spectators and participants subjected to the plastic ball filter—are forward peaked, in contrast to the plastic ball data. We discuss the uncertainties encountered with the application of the experimental efficiency and multiplicity filter. The influence of the Pauli principle on the flow is also discussed. The lack of flow effects in the cascade model clearly reflects the absence of the nuclear compression energy that can cause substantially larger collective sidewards motion—there is too little intrinsic pressure built up in the cascade model
Physics of the Quark-Gluon Plasma
Central nuclear collisions at energies far above 1 GeV/nucleon may provide
for conditions, where the transition from highly excited hadronic matter into
quark matter or quark-gluon plasma can be probed. Here I review our current
understanding of the physical properties of a quark-gluon plasma and review
ideas about the nature of, and signals for, the deconfinement transition. I
also give a detailed presentation of recent progress in the treatment of the
formation of a thermalized state at the parton level.Comment: 47 pages, 29 figures as separate uuencoded tar files, (format
correction), DUKE-TH-92-3
Enhancing the discovery prospects for SUSY-like decays with a forgotten kinematic variable
The lack of a new physics signal thus far at the Large Hadron Collider
motivates us to consider how to look for challenging final states, with large
Standard Model backgrounds and subtle kinematic features, such as cascade
decays with compressed spectra. Adopting a benchmark SUSY-like decay topology
with a four-body final state proceeding through a sequence of two-body decays
via intermediate resonances, we focus our attention on the kinematic variable
which previously has been used to parameterize the boundary of the
allowed four-body phase space. We highlight the advantages of using
as a discovery variable, and present an analysis suggesting that
the pairing of with another invariant mass variable leads to a
significant improvement over more conventional variable choices and techniques.Comment: 20 pages, 13 figures. v2: matches published versio
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