Phase Transitions in a Kinetic Flocking Model of Cucker-Smale Type

We consider a collective behavior model in which individuals try to imitate each others' velocity and have a preferred speed. We show that a phase change phenomenon takes place as diffusion decreases, bringing the system from a “disordered” to an “ordered” state. This effect is related to recently noticed phenomena for the diffusive Vicsek model. We also carry out numerical simulations of the system and give further details on the phase transition

Asymptotic L1-decay of solutions of the porous medium equation to self-similarity

We consider the flow of gas in an N -dimensional porous medium with initial density v0 (x) ≥ 0. The density v(x, t) then satisfies the nonlinear degenerate parabolic equation vt = ∆v m where m > 1 is a physical constant. Assuming that (1 + $2 )v0 (x) dx < ∞, we prove that v(x, t) behaves asymptotically, as t → ∞, like the Barenblatt-Pattle solution V ($, t). We prove that the L1 -distance decays at a rate t 1/((N+2)m−N) . Moreover, if N = 1, we obtain an explicit time decay for the L∞ distance at a suboptimal rate. The method we use is based on recent results we obtained for the Fokker-Planck equation [2], [3]

Particle interactions mediated by dynamical networks: assessment of macroscopic descriptions

We provide a numerical study of the macroscopic model of [3] derived from an agent-based model for a system of particles interacting through a dynamical network of links. Assuming that the network remodelling process is very fast, the macroscopic model takes the form of a single aggregation diffusion equation for the density of particles. The theoretical study of the macroscopic model gives precise criteria for the phase transitions of the steady states, and in the 1-dimensional case, we show numerically that the stationary solutions of the microscopic model undergo the same phase transitions and bifurcation types as the macroscopic model. In the 2-dimensional case, we show that the numerical simulations of the macroscopic model are in excellent agreement with the predicted theoretical values. This study provides a partial validation of the formal derivation of the macroscopic model from a microscopic formulation and shows that the former is a consistent approximation of an underlying particle dynamics, making it a powerful tool for the modelling of dynamical networks at a large scale

On the singularity formation and relaxation to equilibrium in 1D Fokker–Planck model with superlinear drift

We consider a class of Fokker–Planck equations with linear diffusion and superlinear drift enjoying a formal Wasserstein-like gradient flow structure with convex mobility function. In the drift-dominant regime, the equations have a finite critical mass above which the measure minimising the associated entropy functional displays a singular component. Our approach, which addresses the one-dimensional case, is based on a reformulation of the problem in terms of the pseudo-inverse distribution function. Motivated by the structure of the equation in the new variables, we establish a general framework for global-in-time existence, uniqueness and regularity of monotonic viscosity solutions to a class of nonlinear degenerate (resp. singular) parabolic equations, using as a key tool comparison principles and maximum arguments. We then focus on a specific equation and study in more detail the regularity and dynamics of solutions. In particular, blow-up behaviour, formation of condensates (i.e. Dirac measures at zero) and long-time asymptotics are investigated. As a consequence, in the mass-supercritical case, solutions will blow up in L∞ in finite time and—understood in a generalised, measure sense—they will eventually have condensate. We further show that the singular part of the measure solution does in general interact with the density and that condensates can be transient. The equations considered are motivated by a model for bosons introduced by Kaniadakis and Quarati (1994), which has a similar entropy structure and a critical mass if d ≥ 3

Regularity of Local Minimizers of the Interaction Energy Via Obstacle Problems

The repulsion strength at the origin for repulsive/attractive potentials determines the regularity of local minimizers of the interaction energy. In this paper, we show that if this repulsion is like Newtonian or more singular than Newtonian (but still locally integrable), then the local minimizers must be locally bounded densities (and even continuous for more singular than Newtonian repulsion). We prove this (and some other regularity results) by first showing that the potential function associated to a local minimizer solves an obstacle problem and then by using classical regularity results for such problems

Displacement convexity for the entropy in semidiscrete nonlinear Fokker-Planck equations

The displacement λ-convexity of a non-standard entropy with respect to a non-local transportation metric in finite state spaces is shown using a gradient flow approach. The constant λ is computed explicitly in terms of a priori estimates of the solution to a finite-difference approximation of a non-linear Fokker–Planck equation. The key idea is to employ a new mean function, which defines the Onsager operator in the gradient flow formulation

Convergence of the mass-transport steepest descent scheme for the sub-critical Patlak-Keller-Segel model

Variational steepest descent approximation schemes for the modified Patlak-Keller-Segel equation with a logarithmic interaction kernel in any dimension are considered. We prove the convergence of the suitably interpolated in time implicit Euler scheme, defined in terms of the Euclidean Wasserstein distance, associated to this equation for sub-critical masses. As a consequence, we recover the recent result about the global in time existence of weak-solutions to the modified Patlak-Keller-Segel equation for the logarithmic interaction kernel in any dimension in the sub-critical case. Moreover, we show how this method performs numerically in one dimension. In this particular case, this numerical scheme corresponds to a standard implicit Euler method for the pseudo-inverse of the cumulative distribution function. We demonstrate its capabilities to reproduce easily without the need of mesh-refinement the blow-up of solutions for super-critical masses

A hybrid mass transport finite element method for Keller--Segel type systems

We propose a new splitting scheme for general reaction–taxis–diffusion systems in one spatial dimension capable to deal with simultaneous concentrated and diffusive regions as well as travelling waves and merging phenomena. The splitting scheme is based on a mass transport strategy for the cell density coupled with classical finite element approximations for the rest of the system. The built-in mass adaption of the scheme allows for an excellent performance even with respect to dedicated mesh-adapted AMR schemes in original variables