Fig. 4: Group formation analysis.
From: Patchy energy landscapes promote stability of small groups of active particles
Comparison of group formation in energy landscapes with different spatial characteristics, i.e. different sizes of the energy patches (σe). a Experimental trajectories showing an example of group aggregation and fragmentation in a complex landscape with σe = 5 μm, with the start marked by a filled circle and the end by a transparent one. When the patchiness of the landscape is comparable to the dimension of the particles, it reduces both the rate of individual exchange between them and the group size, b, c, respectively. In both panels of c, the insets show the distribution of sizes for different spatial heterogeneities. In b, the error bars represent the standard deviation of the data.
