Predicting pattern formation in particle interactions (Q2892001)

This paper considers large systems of particles interacting pairwise. The authors develop a nonlocal linear stability analysis for particles on a sphere. The ground state patterns of a \(N\)-particle pairwise interaction energy is formulated. The authors develop a continuum formulation of the interaction energy for the gradient flow to study the stability of a uniform sphere. In addition, the authors successfully describe a pairwise interaction of particles lying on a co-dimension-one surface and derive the results regarding the eigenvalue problem associated to the two-sphere of radius \(R\) which is being reduced to a decoupled series of \(2 \times 2\) scalar problems. In other words, the authors reduce the \(d\)-dimensional eigenvalue problem to a decoupled \(2 \times 2\) scalar problem involving a single harmonic. Such a reduction allows to formulate stability and linear well-posedness conditions that have natural physical interpretations. The authors address the fundamental question of understanding how the structure of particle potential predicts the types of patterns that can emerge. They analyze the continuum of pairwise interacting particles on a surface and also develop a predictive theory to construct a potential for particle distributions.