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Unexpected data from the Large Hadron Collider suggest a new type of matter

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Re: Unexpected data from the Large Hadron Collider suggest a new type of matter

#11

Post by stephengillie »

chimeracoder wrote: post #9
stephengillie wrote: post #4

So this color-glass condensate is a very-high-energy type of matter. It goes on the list with: Solid Liquid Gas Plasma Glass Crystal Superfluid Supersolid Superglass Dark

Since when is glass (I assume we mean soda-lime glass) a separate phase of matter? My impression was that it was a solid, and that the myth that it's a highly viscous liquid was based off of incorrect analysis of stained glass windows, etc. that were more likely explained by imperfections in the production process.

My impression was also incorrect. Wiki says it's an "amorphous solid" aka one that doesn't form into crystals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass

There's also Amorphous Ice, which is arranged in a "glass-like" form: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorphous_ice

Re: Unexpected data from the Large Hadron Collider suggest a new type of matter

#13

Post by danking00 »

Even though the MIT News Office subtitled the article with the phrase "new type of matter," could we please change the HN title to "new phase of matter"?

Perhaps this is an Americanism, but a "new type of matter" suggests to me that we've found a new family of fundamental particles besides the quarks, the leptons, and the gauge bosons.

What the article talks about is quite clearly a phase of matter called "color-glass condensate".

Re: Unexpected data from the Large Hadron Collider suggest a new type of matter

#14

Post by juiceandjuice »

stephengillie wrote: post #4

So this color-glass condensate is a very-high-energy type of matter. It goes on the list with: Solid Liquid Gas Plasma Glass Crystal Superfluid Supersolid Superglass Dark

Dark matter doesn't belong on that list.

Re: Unexpected data from the Large Hadron Collider suggest a new type of matter

#15

Post by stephengillie »

juiceandjuice wrote: post #14
stephengillie wrote: post #4

So this color-glass condensate is a very-high-energy type of matter. It goes on the list with: Solid Liquid Gas Plasma Glass Crystal Superfluid Supersolid Superglass Dark

Dark matter doesn't belong on that list.

Why not? Because the energy of which it's composed doesn't interact with photons?

Re: Unexpected data from the Large Hadron Collider suggest a new type of matter

#16

Post by pavel_lishin »

stephengillie wrote: post #15
juiceandjuice wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dark matter doesn't belong on that list.

Why not? Because the energy of which it's composed doesn't interact with photons?

I was under the impression that the term "dark matter" was a stand-in term for something unknown that seems to contradict what we know about how gravity works at large distances.

Re: Unexpected data from the Large Hadron Collider suggest a new type of matter

#17

Post by breadbox »

stephengillie wrote: post #15
juiceandjuice wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dark matter doesn't belong on that list.

Why not? Because the energy of which it's composed doesn't interact with photons?

No, because if nothing else we don't actually know what it's composed of. It's entirely possible that it will turn out to be a new family of particles, for example.

But more to the point, dark matter is certainly not made up of quarks and/or electrons (because it doesn't interact electromagnetically), so shoehorning it into a list of phases of "normal" matter is misleading at best, if not simply wrong.

Re: Unexpected data from the Large Hadron Collider suggest a new type of matter

#18

Post by juiceandjuice »

stephengillie wrote: post #15
juiceandjuice wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dark matter doesn't belong on that list.

Why not? Because the energy of which it's composed doesn't interact with photons?

A phase/state is usually tied to structure and/or energy of matter. Dark matter is the blanket term we give to particles that interact (observably) through gravitational forces.

In general, cosmology is concerned with the quantification and characteristics of dark matter through observation, so a cosmologist is likely to mean the congregation of dark matter in the universe. Particle physicists are generally concerned with direct observation and characteristics through experiment.

I don't know who messed with the wikipedia article on state of matter, but they're wrong.

Re: Unexpected data from the Large Hadron Collider suggest a new type of matter

#19

Post by Almaviva »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #16
stephengillie wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Because the energy of which it's composed doesn't interact with photons?

I was under the impression that the term "dark matter" was a stand-in term for something unknown that seems to contradict what we know about how gravity works at large distances.

Cosmologists will tell you more but it doesn't contradict how gravity works at large distances at all - we just see gravity working on something in a familiar way and don't know quite what it is.

Re: Unexpected data from the Large Hadron Collider suggest a new type of matter

#20

Post by cristianpascu »

Almaviva wrote: post #19
pavel_lishin wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was under the impression that the term "dark matter" was a stand-in term for something unknown that seems to contradict what we know about how gravity works at large distances.

Cosmologists will tell you more but it doesn't contradict how gravity works at large distances at all - we just see gravity working on something in a familiar way and don't know quite what it is.

Actually, I think, we take it as if it's the gravity we know at work. We deduce the distribution of dark matter using the premise that dark matter is governed by the same gravity law.

If the distribution is actually different or if there's something entirely different, but with the same observable effect, then...

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