Regensburg 2010 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 27: Networks: From Topology to Dynamics IV (joint DY, BP, SOE)
BP 27.4: Talk
Thursday, March 25, 2010, 15:00–15:15, H44
Adaptive network approach to the collective motion of self-propelled agents — •Anne-Ly Do1, Cristian Huepe2, Gerd Zschaler1, and Thilo Gross1 — 1MPI for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden — 2unaffiliated National Science Foundation grantee
Swarming is a showcase example of emergent behavior in complex many-particle systems. Previous modeling approaches rely on continuum theories or on individual based simulations and are difficult to study analytically as emergent-level equations are either complicated or not available at all. Here we propose an analytically tractable approach that bases on an adaptive network formulation. The nodes of this network represent individual animals while the links represent mutual awareness and therefore potential interaction between the linked individuals. Over time links are constantly created and broken as the movement of agents reshapes the network of contacts. Simultaneously the direction of movement can change as a result of the interactions with neighbors in the contact network. By means of moment closure approximation we derive an emergent-level description of the system and study it with the tools of nonlinear dynamics. We show that the system exhibits a phase transition from an unpolarized state, where no order motion occurs, to a state of collective motion, thus reproducing the results of recent swarming experiments.