Transitions of Collective Motions Driven by Phase Resetting

Abstract

Abrupt (i. e. step) environmental changes, such as natural disasters or the intervention of predators, can alter the internal dynamics of groups with active units, leading to the rapid destruction and/or restructuring of the group, with the emergence of new collective structures that endow the system with adaptability. Few studies, to date, have considered the influence of abrupt environmental changes on emergent behavior. Here, we use a model of active matter, the Belousov‐Zhabotinsky (BZ) self‐oscillating gel, to study the mechanism of formation and transition between modes of collective locomotion caused by changes of illumination intensity in arrays of interacting photosensitive active units. New forms of collective motion can be generated by step changes of illumination intensity. These transformations arise from the phase resetting and wave‐signal regeneration induced by the abrupt parameter variation, while gradual change results in different evolution of collective motion. Our results not only suggest a novel mechanism for emergence, but also imply that new collective behaviors could be accessible via discontinuous parameter changes.

Emergent Synchronous Volumetric Oscillation in Hierarchically Structured Self-Oscillating Gel Clusters

“…In contrast to previous studies, − ,,− our study focuses on gel-clustering phenomena and tracks changes in volumetric oscillatory behaviors, especially in the volumetric amplitude. First, the emergent properties accompanied by the synchronization of the volumetric oscillation are a new attempt in the field, revealing new phenomena between the oscillators.…”

Oscillation Resynchronization in a Photosensitive Reaction-Diffusion System

“…Balazs and coworkers simulated and analyzed chemical-mechanical co-oscillatory behavior within am anisotropic BZ gel medium via gLSM [27][28][29], stress-modulated synchronized oscillation [30], geometrical parameter modulated collective oscillation of multiple gels [31], synchronized waves modulated by the asymmetric size of media [32], mechanical-chemical effect on the synchronized oscillation [33] and materials with BZ gel that compute [34]. The BZ gel system is also one of the important research systems for bionic directed motion [35][36][37][38][39][40][41] and collective behavior [28,42,43], both of which are closely related to oscillation synchronization.…”