Regensburg 2025 – scientific programme
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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik
DY 3: Active Matter I (joint session DY/BP/CPP)
DY 3.7: Talk
Monday, March 17, 2025, 11:30–11:45, H37
Swarming model with minority interaction exhibits temporal and spatial scale-free correlations — •Simon Syga1, Chandraniva Guha Ray2, 3, 4, Josué Manik Nava Sedeño5, Fernando Peruani6, 7, and Andreas Deutsch1 — 1Technische Universität Dresden — 2Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems — 3Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics — 4Center for Systems Biology Dresden — 5Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México — 6Université Côte d'Azur, Nice — 7CY Cergy Paris Université
Collective motion is a widespread phenomenon in social organisms, from bird flocks and fish schools to human crowds and cell groups. Swarms of birds and fish are particularly fascinating for their coordinated behavior and rapid escape maneuvers during predator attacks. Critical motion is hypothesized as an optimal trade-off between cohesive group behavior and responsiveness to well-informed individuals. However, traditional models only show criticality at the phase transition between ordered and unordered motion. Here, we extend the Vicsek model with a minority interaction, where individuals primarily follow neighbors but can switch to follow a defector moving against a well-aligned group. This triggers cascades of defections, leading to rich dynamics, including large-scale fluctuations, scale-free velocity distributions, and a scale-free return time distribution of the order parameter. Our model underscores the biological importance of minority interactions in swarming and their role in critical behavior.
Keywords: collective motion; Vicsek model; self-organized criticality; scale-free correlations; agent-based model