Similarities between insect swarms and isothermal globular clusters

Dan Gorbonos, Kasper Vaart, Michael Sinhuber, James G Puckett, Andrew M Reynolds, Nicholas T Ouellette, Nir S Gov

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Previous work has suggested that disordered swarms of flying insects can be well modeled as self-gravitating systems, as long as the "gravitational"interaction is adaptive. Motivated by this work, we compare the predictions of the classic, mean-field King model for isothermal globular clusters to observations of insect swarms. Detailed numerical simulations of regular and adaptive gravity allow us to expose the features of the swarms' density and velocity profiles that are due to long-range interactions and are captured by the King model phenomenology, and those that are due to adaptivity and short-range repulsion. Our results provide further support for adaptive gravity as a model for swarms.

Original languageEnglish
Article number013271
JournalPHYSICAL REVIEW RESEARCH
Volume2
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2020

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Physics and Astronomy

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