Partial vision leads to an unexpected emergent collective behavior in active aligning particles
Abstract
The Vicsek Model represents a paradigmatic framework for understanding the collective motion of active aligning particles, traditionally assuming isotropic interaction fields. Inspired by biological systems characterized by limited perception and blind spots, we propose a generalized Vicsek model featuring two distinct, non-overlapping angular vision cones. We systematically investigate the non-equilibrium phase behavior of this system by tuning the aperture area (α) and the front-back orientation (\b{eta}) of the cones. Our results reveal that restricting the lateral vision area destabilizes global order, shifts the critical noise, and induces highly dense traveling bands. Furthermore, breaking the front-back symmetry introduces non-reciprocal interactions that profoundly alter the emergent spatial structures: forward-biased vision drives strong clustering through "follow the leader" alignment, whereas backward-biased alignment stabilizes an exceptionally homogeneous flocking state with suppressed density fluctuations. Finally, we incorporate short-range volume exclusion, demonstrating that the structural integrity of these novel tightly-clustered phases is highly sensitive to steric interactions. Our work provides new insights into the interplay between non-reciprocal perception, spatial anisotropy, and physical constraints in active matter.
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BibTeX
@misc{lallena2026partial,
title = {{Partial vision leads to an unexpected emergent collective behavior in active aligning particles}},
author = {Raúl Molina-Prados Lallena and José Martín-Roca and Chantal Valeriani},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2607.27819},
eprint = {2607.27819},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.27819},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Partial vision leads to an unexpected emergent collective behavior in active aligning particles
AU - Raúl Molina-Prados Lallena
AU - José Martín-Roca
AU - Chantal Valeriani
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/01
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2607.27819
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.27819
AB - The Vicsek Model represents a paradigmatic framework for understanding the collective motion of active aligning particles, traditionally assuming isotropic interaction fields. Inspired by biological systems characterized by limited perception and blind spots, we propose a generalized Vicsek model featuring two distinct, non-overlapping angular vision cones. We systematically investigate the non-equilibrium phase behavior of this system by tuning the aperture area (α) and the front-back orientation (\b{eta}) of the cones. Our results reveal that restricting the lateral vision area destabilizes global order, shifts the critical noise, and induces highly dense traveling bands. Furthermore, breaking the front-back symmetry introduces non-reciprocal interactions that profoundly alter the emergent spatial structures: forward-biased vision drives strong clustering through "follow the leader" alignment, whereas backward-biased alignment stabilizes an exceptionally homogeneous flocking state with suppressed density fluctuations. Finally, we incorporate short-range volume exclusion, demonstrating that the structural integrity of these novel tightly-clustered phases is highly sensitive to steric interactions. Our work provides new insights into the interplay between non-reciprocal perception, spatial anisotropy, and physical constraints in active matter.
ER -