We present a measurement of the average value of a new observable at hadron colliders that is sensitive
to QCD dynamics and to the strong coupling constant, while being only weakly sensitive to parton
distribution functions. The observable measures the angular correlations of jets and is defined as the
number of neighboring jets above a given transverse momentum threshold which accompany a given jet
within a given distance �R in the plane of rapidity and azimuthal angle. The ensemble average over all
jets in an inclusive jet sample is measured and the results are presented as a function of transverse
momentum of the inclusive jets, in different regions of �R and for different transverse momentum
requirements for the neighboring jets. The measurement is based on a data set corresponding to an
integrated luminosity of 0.7 fb−1 collected with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider in p¯p
collisions at
√
s = 1.96 TeV. The results are well described by a perturbative QCD calculation in next-toleading
order in the strong coupling constant, corrected for non-perturbative effects. From these results,
we extract the strong coupling and test the QCD predictions for its running over a range of momentum
transfers of 50–400 GeV
