Symmetry-breaking phase-transitions in highly concentrated semen

New experimental evidence of self-motion of a confined active suspension is presented. Depositing fresh semen sample in an annular shaped micro- fluidic chip leads to a spontaneous vortex state of the fluid at sufficiently large sperm concentration. The rotation occurs unpredictably clockwise or counterclockwise and is robust and stable. Furthermore, for highly active and concentrated semen, richer dynamics can occur such as self-sustained or damped rotation oscillations. Experimental results obtained with systematic dilution provide a clear evidence of a phase transition toward collective motion associated with local alignment of spermatozoa akin to the Vicsek model. A macroscopic theory based on previously derived Self-Organized Hydrodynamics (SOH) models is adapted to this context and provides predictions consistent with the observed stationary motion

A new flocking model through body attitude coordination

We present a new model for multi-agent dynamics where each agent is described by its position and body attitude: agents travel at a constant speed in a given direction and their body can rotate around it adopting different configurations. In this manner, the body attitude is described by three orthonormal axes giving an element in SO(3) (rotation matrix). Agents try to coordinate their body attitudes with the ones of their neighbours. In the present paper, we give the Individual Based Model (particle model) for this dynamics and derive its corresponding kinetic and macroscopic equations. The work presented here is inspired by the Vicsek model and its study in [24]. This is a new model where collective motion is reached through body attitude coordination

Nematic alignment of self-propelled particles in the macroscopic regime

Starting from a particle model describing self-propelled particles interacting through nematic alignment, we derive a macroscopic model for the particle density and mean direction of motion. We first propose a mean-field kinetic model of the particle dynamics. After diffusive rescaling of the kinetic equation, we formally show that the distribution function converges to an equilibrium distribution in particle direction, whose local density and mean direction satisfies a cross-diffusion system. We show that the system is consistent with symmetries typical of a nematic material. The derivation is carried over by means of a Hilbert expansion. It requires the inversion of the linearized collision operator for which we show that the generalized collision invariants, a concept introduced to overcome the lack of momentum conservation of the system, plays a central role. This cross diffusion system poses many new challenging questions

Macroscopic limit of a Fokker-Planck model of swarming rigid bodies

We consider self-propelled rigid-bodies interacting through local body-attitude alignment modelled by stochastic differential equations. We derive a hydrodynamic model of this system at large spatio-temporal scales and particle numbers in any dimension $n \geq 3$. This goal was already achieved in dimension $n=3$, or in any dimension $n \geq 3$ for a different system involving jump processes. However, the present work corresponds to huge conceptual and technical gaps compared with earlier ones. The key difficulty is to determine an auxiliary but essential object, the generalized collision invariant. We achieve this aim by using the geometrical structure of the rotation group, namely, its maximal torus, Cartan subalgebra and Weyl group as well as other concepts of representation theory and Weyl's integration formula. The resulting hydrodynamic model appears as a hyperbolic system whose coefficients depend on the generalized collision invariant

Phase transitions and macroscopic limits in a BGK model of body-attitude coordination

In this article we investigate the phase transition phenomena that occur in a model of self-organisation through body-attitude coordination. Here, the body attitude of an agent is modelled by a rotation matrix in R3 as in Degond et al. (Math Models Methods Appl Sci 27(6):1005–1049, 2017). The starting point of this study is a BGK equation modelling the evolution of the distribution function of the system at a kinetic level. The main novelty of this work is to show that in the spatially homogeneous case, self-organisation may appear or not depending on the local density of agents involved. We first exhibit a connection between body-orientation models and models of nematic alignment of polymers in higher-dimensional space from which we deduce the complete description of the possible equilibria. Then, thanks to a gradient-flow structure specific to this BGK model, we are able to prove the stability and the convergence towards the equilibria in the different regimes. We then derive the macroscopic models associated with the stable equilibria in the spirit of Degond et al. (Arch Ration Mech Anal 216(1):63–115, 2015, Math Models Methods Appl Sci 27(6):1005–1049, 2017)

Cauchy theory for general kinetic vicsek models in collective dynamics and mean-field limit approximations

In this paper we provide a local Cauchy theory both on the torus and in the whole space for general Vicsek dynamics at the kinetic level. We consider rather general interaction kernels, nonlinear viscosity, and nonlinear friction. Particularly, we include normalized kernels which display a singularity when the flux of particles vanishes. Thus, in terms of the Cauchy theory for the kinetic equation, we extend to more general interactions and complete the program initiated in [I. M. Gamba and M.-J. Kang, Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal., 222 (2016), pp. 317--342] (where the authors assume that the singularity does not take place) and in [A. Figalli, M.-J. Kang, and J. Morales, Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal., 227 (2018), pp. 869--896] (where the authors prove that the singularity does not happen in the spatially homogeneous case). Moreover, we derive an explicit lower time of existence as well as a global existence criterion that is applicable, among other cases, to obtain a long time theory for nonrenormalized kernels and for the original Vicsek problem without any a priori assumptions. On the second part of the paper, we also establish the mean-field limit in the large particle limit for an approximated (regularized) system that coincides with the original one whenever the flux does not vanish. Based on the results proved for the limit kinetic equation, we prove that for short times, the probability that the dynamics of this approximated particle system coincides with the original singular dynamics tends to one in the many particle limit