Unexpected stray attractors in confined leader-follower dynamics driven by cone-of-vision interactions.

Experiments with groups of fish inside a circular tank have provided valuable insights into the nature of leadership in social groups. Sophisticated mathematical models were constructed with a view to recovering observed schooling and leadership behavior in such experiments. Here, and with the help of variations on a promising class of such models, we explore a dual set of social concerns, namely the likelihood of permanent evasion from a cohesive group by a controlled individual in confinement.

Steady and transient states in low-energy swarms: Stability and first-passage times.

We investigate a class of agent-based models of self-propelled particles (SPP) that interact according to a Morse potential in the presence of friction, a class which was able to reproduce many of the intriguing patterns of collective motion observed in nature. Specifically, we compare two closely related SPP models in the literature that differ by their prescription of particle drag and self-propulsion. Writing both models in terms of nondimensional parameters allows us to show that the dynamics in the highly viscous regime is independent of the precise forms of drag and propulsion.