Collective effects in traffic on bi-directional ant trails.
Motivated by recent experimental work of Burd et al., we propose a model of bi-directional ant traffic on pre-existing ant trails. It captures in a simple way some of the generic collective features of movements of real ants on a trail. Analysing this model, we demonstrate that there are crucial qualitative differences between vehicular- and ant-traffics. In particular, we predict some unusual features of the flow rate that can be tested experimentally. As in the uni-directional model a non-monotonic density-dependence of the average velocity can be observed in certain parameter regimes. As a consequence of the interaction between oppositely moving ants the flow rate can become approximately constant over some density interval.
John
Alexander
A
Institute for Theoretical Physics, Universität zu Köln, D- 50937 Köln, Germany. aj@thp.uni-koeln.de
Schadschneider
Andreas
A
Chowdhury
Debashish
D
Nishinari
Katsuhiro
K
D000818:Animals; D001000:Ants / Q000502:physiology*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D008954:Models, Biological; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*