Social Phases in Human Movement

TL;DR

This paper investigates social phases in human movement using high-resolution tracking data, revealing gas and liquid-vapor phases, and introduces a statistical physics model to explain these phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces a new ultra-wideband RFID technology for high-resolution data collection and proposes a model to explain social phases in human movement.

Findings

Identified gas and liquid-vapor coexistence phases in human movement.

Measured effective temperatures corresponding to different social phases.

Developed a model reproducing observed phases.

Abstract

Recent empirical studies found different thermodynamic phases for collective motion in animals. However, such a thermodynamic description for human movement remains unclear, mainly due to the limited resolution of existing tracking technologies. In this Letter, we used a new ultra-wideband radio frequency identification technology to collect high-resolution spatial-temporal data for classroom movements. We measured the effective temperatures for the underlying systems, and found two social phases, gas and liquid-vapor coexistence, associated with different temperatures. We also proposed a simple statistical physics model that can reproduce different empirically observed phases.