Burstiness and information spreading in active particle systems

Area of Science:

• Physics
• Complex Systems
• Network Science

Background:

• The Vicsek model is a fundamental tool for studying self-propelled particles and emergent behavior.
• Understanding temporal networks and signal burstiness is crucial in various scientific domains.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the burstiness of interevent times in a temporal network constructed using the two-dimensional Vicsek model.
• To explore the relationship between phase transitions in the Vicsek model and the bursty nature of signals.
• To analyze the impact of burstiness on spreading dynamics within the temporal network.

Main Methods:

• Construction of a temporal network based on the two-dimensional Vicsek model.
• Numerical investigation of interevent time distributions and burstiness parameters for particle pairs.
• Calculation of memory coefficients to characterize signal persistence.
• Simulation of spreading dynamics using a susceptible-infected model on the temporal network.

Main Results:

• The interevent time distributions exhibit heavy tails, indicating signal burstiness across different noise strengths.
• Burstiness parameters minimize near the phase transition points of the Vicsek model, suggesting a connection between order and burstiness.
• A positive correlation was observed between signal burstiness and the speed of spreading dynamics on the network.

Conclusions:

• The Vicsek model generates temporally bursty signals, particularly near phase transitions.
• Signal burstiness in this system is influenced by noise and particle density.
• Burstiness positively correlates with spreading dynamics, implying that bursty signals can facilitate faster information or disease propagation.