CALL FOR PAPERS for Physica D Special issue: Emergent behaviour in multi-particle systems with non-local interactions.

Description: Collective behavior of interacting particle systems is a captivating natural phenomenon. Such systems form patterns that inspire evolutionary and biological questions as well as structural and physical ones. More recently, such natural behavior has inspired intelligent design of control algorithms for unmanned vehicles. Particle interaction models are extremely prevalent in the biology literature in many contexts such as insect aggregation, locust swarms; however they also arise in other important physics applications such as self-assembly of nanoparticles, theory of granular gases, and molecular dynamics simulations of matter. Mathematically, the two main approaches is to study multi-particle systems using the theory of dynamical systems; or by taking the continuum limit of the kinetic equations, which typically results in a PDE system that involves integral terms. Due to nonlocal nature, these systems often lead to novel phenomena that have motivated the development of new mathematical tools.

Guest editors:

  • Andrea Bertozzi, University of California Los Angeles,
  • Jose Antonio Carrillo, University of Barcelona,
  • Razvan Fetecau, Simon Fraser University,
  • Theodore Kolokolnikov, Dalhousie University (Managing guest editor)
  • Mark Lewis, University of Alberta

    Chief editor: Joceline Lega, University of Arizona

    Deadline for submission is February 2012. Submission is done via Physica D website, http://ees.elsevier.com/physd/default.asp. Please remember to choose "special issue: birs workshop" if submitting through the website.

    Refereeing process: All papers will be refereed using the same rigorous standards as regular issues of Physica D. The papers will be sent to referees as soon as they are received to ensure prompt response. Submission of the paper to the special issue implies that it represents original work not previously published and not being considered for publication elsewhere.