Collective Behavior of Bistable Units with Global and Asymmetric Local Interactions

Competition between global and asymmetric local interactions among bistable units brings about the characteristic collective behavior: the state of each unit is nonsteady, while their average property remains almost constant. The existence of noise is necessary for sustaining this nonsteady bistable dynamics. In the dynamics, the interface motion between the two different stable states is characterized. The difference from the case with global and diffusive (symmetric) local interactions is discussed. Subject Index: 034 Collective behaviors of interactive units have been studied extensively from the viewpoint of nonlinear dynamics and nonequilibrium statistical physics, for exam-ple, synchronization in coupled oscillators1),2) and flock motion in interactive self-propelled particles.3) Recently, we have shown that collective dynamics of interactiv