Inferring the size of a collective of self-propelled Vicsek particles from the random motion of a single unit

Abstract

Inferring the number of interacting components in a complex, noisy, possibly non-equilibrium, system is of interest to various fields of science. Here, the authors present a method to extract the size of an ensemble of self-propelled Vicsek particles starting from the motion of a single unit by exploiting the analogy with the classical kinetic theory of gases.