Flocking Beyond One Species: Novel Phase Coexistence in a Generalized Two-Species Vicsek Model.

Authors

Eloise Lardet, Letian Chen, Thibault Bertrand

Published in

Physical review letters. Volume 137. Issue 11. Pages 118303. Sep 11, 2026.

Abstract

A hallmark in natural systems, self-organization often stems from very simple interaction rules between individual agents. While single-species self-propelled particle systems are well understood, the behavior of binary mixtures with general alignment interactions remains largely unexplored with a few scattered results hinting at the existence of a rich emergent phase behavior. Here, we investigate systematically a generalization of the two-species Vicsek model with reciprocal intra- and interspecies (anti)alignment couplings, uncovering a rich phenomenology of emergent states. Notably, we show that rather than destroying polar order, antialigning interactions can promote phase separation and the emergence of global polar order. In doing so, we uncover a novel mechanism for microphase separation. We further find these coexistence patterns can be generalized to multispecies systems with cyclic alignment interactions.

PMID:
42789838
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 26 Sep 2026.

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