Anomalous Collective Dynamics of Auto-Chemotactic Populations

TL;DR

This paper investigates the critical dynamics of populations exhibiting auto-chemotaxis with long-range interactions, revealing distinct scaling behaviors and mechanisms that stabilize phase transitions.

Contribution

It introduces a renormalization group analysis of autochemotactic populations, identifying new scaling regimes and nonlinear stabilization mechanisms near extinction thresholds.

Findings

Distinct scaling regimes for fast and slow chemotactic interactions

A correction to the Keller-Segel model near extinction threshold

A nonlinear mechanism stabilizing continuous phase transitions

Abstract

While the role of local interactions in nonequilibrium phase transitions is well studied, a fundamental understanding of the effects of long-range interactions is lacking. We study the critical dynamics of reproducing agents subject to autochemotactic interactions and limited resources. A renormalization group analysis reveals distinct scaling regimes for fast (attractive or repulsive) interactions; for slow signal transduction, the dynamics is dominated by a diffusive fixed point. Furthermore, we present a correction to the Keller-Segel nonlinearity emerging close to the extinction threshold and a novel nonlinear mechanism that stabilizes the continuous transition against the emergence of a characteristic length scale due to a chemotactic collapse.