Self-propelled interacting particle systems with roosting force

We consider a self-propelled interacting particle system for the collective behavior of swarms of animals, and extend it with an attraction term called roosting force, as it has been suggested in Ref. 30. This new force models the tendency of birds to overfly a fixed preferred location, e.g. a nest or a food source. We include roosting to the existing individual-based model and consider the associated mean-field and hydrodynamic equations. The resulting equations are investigated analytically looking at different asymptotic limits of the corresponding stochastic model. In addition to existing patterns like single mills, the inclusion of roosting yields new scenarios of collective behavior, which we study numerically on the microscopic as well as on the hydrodynamic level. © 2010 World Scientific Publishing Company.