Contrarian compulsions produce exotic time-dependent flocking of active particles Articles uri icon

publication date

  • January 2019

start page

  • 1

end page

  • 19

issue

  • 1(012612)

volume

  • 99

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 2470-0053

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 2470-0045

abstract

  • Animals having a tendency to align their velocities to an average of those of their neighbors may flock as illustrated by the Vicsek model and its variants. If, in addition, they feel a systematic contrarian trend, the result may be a time periodic adjustment of the flock or period doubling in time. These exotic phases are predicted from kinetic theory and numerically found in a modified two-dimensional Vicsek model of self-propelled particles. Numerical simulations demonstrate striking effects of alignment noise on the polarization order parameter measuring particle flocking: maximum polarization length is achieved at an optimal nonzero noise level. When contrarian compulsions are more likely than conformist ones, nonuniform polarized phases appear as the noise surpasses threshold.

subjects

  • Mathematics

keywords