English

The Fast Wandering of Slow Birds

Other Condensed Matter 2013-05-29 v5

Abstract

I study a single "slow" bird moving with a flock of birds of a different, and faster (or slower) species. I find that every "species" of flocker has a characteristic speed γv0\gamma\ne v_0, where v0v_0 is the mean speed of the flock, such that, if the speed vsv_s of the "slow" bird equals γ\gamma, it will randomly wander transverse to the mean direction of flock motion far faster than the other birds will: its mean-squared transverse displacement will grow in d=2d=2 with time tt like t5/3t^{5/3}, in contrast to t4/3t^{4/3} for the other birds. In d=3d=3, the slow bird's mean squared transverse displacement grows like t5/4t^{5/4}, in contrast to tt for the other birds. If vsγv_s\neq \gamma, the mean-squared displacement of the "slow" bird crosses over from t5/2t^{5/2} to t4/3t^{4/3} scaling in d=2d=2, and from t5/4t^{5/4} to tt scaling in d=3d=3, at a time tct_c that scales according to tcvsγ2t_c \propto|v_s-\gamma|^{-2}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0909.1954,
  title  = {The Fast Wandering of Slow Birds},
  author = {John Toner},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0909.1954},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

10 pages; 5 pages of which did not appear in earlier versions, but were added in response to referee's suggestions