Structure formation in a conserved mass model of a set of individuals interacting with attractive and repulsive forces

Phys Rev E. 2021 Jul;104(1-1):014212. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.104.014212.

Abstract

We study a set of interacting individuals that conserve their total mass. In order to describe its dynamics we resort to mesoscopic equations of reaction diffusion including currents driven by attractive and repulsive forces. For the mass conservation we consider a linear response parameter that maintains the mass in the vicinity of a optimal value which is determined by the set. We use the reach and intensity of repulsive forces as control parameters. When sweeping a wide range of parameter space we find a great diversity of localized structures, stationary as well as other ones with cyclical and chaotic dynamics. We compare our results with real situations.