Row straightening via local interactions (Q1363389)

The paper investigates the behaviour of a polygonal line whose ends are fixed, while the rest of the vertices move according to a local averaging rule. The behaviour of the free polygon with all the vertices evolving according to the same linear averaging rule can be presented by multiplying the (complex) vector for the locations of the vertices by a circulant matrix. In these conditions, the authors proved that a polygonal line with fixed endpoints converges to a straight line via sinusoidal transients. The convergence of the configuration is exponentially fast. This problem is proved to be similar to the discrete case of the pulse-delay problem in a distributed \(RC\) line (with \(RC\) being the basic time constant of the circuit). A variation of the problem can be used to explain the sinusoidal of animal herd fronts. Finally, the paper proposes a conjecture concerning the evolution of a similar system with a probabilistic rule of behaviour. Simulation examples illustrate the computation method.