Date:
Mon, 19/06/201712:00-13:30
Location:
Levin building, Lecture Hall No. 8
Lecturer: Prof. Thierry Mora
Affiliation: Laboratoire de physique statistique, CNRS & Ecole normale supérieure, Paris
Abstract:
The coordinated flight of bird flocks is a striking example of collective behavior in biology, and is reminiscent of ordered phases in physics. Using 3D positions and velocities of large natural flocks of starlings, I will show how to build an explicit mapping of flock behavior onto statistical physics models of spin alignment. Learning the parameters of these models allows us to infer the local rules of alignment, and to reveal that flocks are poised close to a critical point where susceptibility to external perturbations is maximal.
Extending the approach to alignment dynamics further shows that flocks are in a state of local quasi-equilibrium.
Affiliation: Laboratoire de physique statistique, CNRS & Ecole normale supérieure, Paris
Abstract:
The coordinated flight of bird flocks is a striking example of collective behavior in biology, and is reminiscent of ordered phases in physics. Using 3D positions and velocities of large natural flocks of starlings, I will show how to build an explicit mapping of flock behavior onto statistical physics models of spin alignment. Learning the parameters of these models allows us to infer the local rules of alignment, and to reveal that flocks are poised close to a critical point where susceptibility to external perturbations is maximal.
Extending the approach to alignment dynamics further shows that flocks are in a state of local quasi-equilibrium.