Wake-mediated interaction between driven particles crossing a perpendicular flow

Abstract

Diagonal or chevron patterns are known to spontaneously emerge at the intersection of two perpendicular flows of self-propelled particles, e.g. pedestrians. The instability responsible for this pattern formation has been studied in previous work in the context of a mean-field approach. Here we investigate the microscopic mechanism yielding to this pattern. We present a lattice model study of the wake created by a particle crossing a perpendicular flow and show how this wake can localize other particles traveling in the same direction as a result of an effective interaction mediated by the perpendicular flow. The use of a semi-deterministic model allows us to characterize analytically the effective interaction between two particles.