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Flocking beyond one species: Novel phase coexistence in a generalized two-species Vicsek model

Eloise Lardet,Letian Chen,Thibault Bertrand

Published 2025 in Physical Review Letters

ABSTRACT

A hallmark in natural systems, self-organization often stems from very simple interaction rules between individual agents. While single-species self-propelled particle (SPP) 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, anti-aligning 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 multi-species systems with cyclic alignment interactions.

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