Emergent collective behavior of active Brownian particles by visual perception

TL;DR

This study uses simulations to explore how active Brownian particles with visual perception form complex self-organized structures, revealing new insights into collective behavior driven by cognitive-like interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a minimal cognitive flocking model with visual perception, demonstrating emergent structures and phase behavior distinct from traditional models.

Findings

Emergent structures include worms, worm-aggregate coexistence, and hexagonally close-packed formations.

Active diffusion decreases in dense clusters and depends on cluster size.

Cluster growth dynamics differ from equilibrium colloid systems due to non-reciprocal visual perception.

Abstract

Systems comprised of self-steering active Brownian particles are studied via simulations for a minimal cognitive flocking model. The dynamics of the active Brownian particles is extended by an orientational response with limited maneuverability to an instantaneous visual input of the positions of neighbors within a vision cone and a cut-off radius. The system exhibits large-scale self-organized structures, which depend on selected parameter values, and, in particular, the presence of excluded-volume interactions. The emergent structures in two dimensions, such as worms, worm-aggregate coexistence, and hexagonally close-packed structures, are analysed and phase diagrams are constructed. The analysis of the particle's mean-square displacement shows ABP-like dynamics for dilute systems and the worm phase. In the limit of densely packed structures, the active diffusion coefficient is significantly smaller and depends on the number of particles in the cluster. Our analysis of the cluster-growth dynamics shows distinct differences to processes in systems of short-range attractive colloids in equilibrium. Specifically, the characteristic time for the growth and decay of clusters of a particular size is longer than that of isotropically attractive colloids, which we attribute to the non-reciprocal nature of the directed visual perception. Our simulations reveal a strong interplay between ABP-characteristic interactions, such as volume exclusion and rotational diffusion, and cognitive-based interactions and navigation.