From arXiv to argument
Particles & Plots is a weekly high-energy physics journal club at the University of Iowa. Each week members bring papers from arXiv, the group votes on what to read, and at the weekly meeting we talk it through: what the paper claims, whether we believe it, and what it means for the work we do.
Students, postdocs and faculty are all welcome, and so are papers from any corner of the field: theory, phenomenology, experiment, instrumentation, or a review you found useful.
Anyone can bring a paper
You don’t need to be an expert, to have read everything in the field, or to think a paper is important. If you’re curious about it, bring it. “I don’t understand this result” is one of the best reasons there is. New here? Your suggestions are especially welcome.
No GitHub account? Email with the arXiv ID or link as the subject and a line on why in the body.
When we meet
How it works
- Bring a paper with the form: an arXiv ID or link and a line on why. It’s a GitHub issue, so you need a GitHub account.
- A bot adds the title, authors, abstract and BibTeX, and the paper appears on This Week.
- Everyone votes with a 👍 on the papers they’d like to discuss. Voting is about what to read, not whose paper it is.
- At the meeting we discuss; the paper gets a ⭐ and moves to the Archive after Sunday.
- Once a month you can get a short private email about your month at the club. Only you see it; it goes to the public email on your GitHub profile.