Regensburg 2022 – scientific programme
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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik
CPP 47: Active Matter 5 (joint session DY/BP/CPP)
CPP 47.8: Talk
Friday, September 9, 2022, 11:45–12:00, H18
Spontaneous trail formation in populations of communicating active walkers — Zahra Mokhtari1, Robert I. A. Patterson2, and •Felix Höfling1,3 — 1Dept. Mathematics and Computer Science, Freie Universität Berlin — 2WIAS Berlin — 3Zuse Institute Berlin
How do ants form long stable trails? Despite abundant evidence that trail formation in colonies of insects or bacteria originates in their sensing of and responding to the deposits of chemicals that they produce, there is no consensus on the minimum required ingredients for this phenomenon. To address this issue, here, we develop an agent-based model in terms of active random walkers communicating via pheromones, which can generate trails of agents from an initially homogeneous distribution [1]. Based on extensive off-lattice computer simulations we obtain qualitatively the non-equilibrium state diagram of the model, spanned by the strength of the agent-chemical interaction and the number density of the population. In particular, we demonstrate the spontaneous formation of persistent, macroscopic trails, and highlight some behaviour that is consistent with a dynamic phase transition. We also propose a dynamic model for few macroscopic observables, including the sub-population size of trail-following agents, which captures the early phase of trail formation. At high densities and for strong alignment, we observe that rotating clusters (“ant mills”) are more stable than trails and can swallow them up.
[1] Z. Mokhtari, R. I. A. Patterson & F. Höfling, New J. Phys. 24, 013012 (2022).