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We analyse the asymptotic behavior for kinetic models describing the collective behavior of animal populations. We focus on models for self-propelled individuals, whose velocity relaxes toward the mean orientation of the neighbors. The self-propelling and friction forces together with the alignment and the noise are interpreted as a collision/interaction mechanism acting with equal strength. We show that the set of generalized collision invariants, introduced in [29], is equivalent in our setting to the more classical notion of collision invariants, i.e., the kernel of a suitably linearized collision operator. After identifying these collision invariants, we derive the fluid model, by appealing to the balances for the particle concentration and orientation. We investigate the main properties of the macroscopic model for a general potential with radial symmetry.

This paper is devoted to the rigorous derivation of the macroscopic limit of a Vlasov-Fokker-Planck equation in which the Laplacian is replaced by a fractional Laplacian. The evolution of the density is governed by a fractional heat equation with the addition of a convective term coming from the external force. The analysis is performed by a modified test function method and by obtaining a priori estimates from quadratic entropy bounds. In addition, we give the proof of existence and uniqueness of solutions to the Vlasov-fractional-Fokker-Planck equation.

This paper is devoted to the approximation of the linear Boltzmann equation by fractional diffusion equations. Most existing results address this question when there is no external acceleration field. The goal of this paper is to investigate the case where a given acceleration field is present. The main result of this paper shows that for an appropriate scaling of the acceleration field, the usual fractional diffusion equation is supplemented by an advection term. Both the critical and supercritical case are considered.

We model and study the patterns created through the interaction of collectively moving self-propelled particles (SPPs) and elastically tethered obstacles. Simulations of an individual-based model reveal at least three distinct large-scale patterns: travelling bands, trails and moving clusters. This motivates the derivation of a macroscopic partial differential equations model for the interactions between the self-propelled particles and the obstacles, for which we assume large tether stiffness. The result is a coupled system of nonlinear, non-local partial differential equations. Linear stability analysis shows that patterning is expected if the interactions are strong enough and allows for the predictions of pattern size from model parameters. The macroscopic equations reveal that the obstacle interactions induce short-ranged SPP aggregation, irrespective of whether obstacles and SPPs are attractive or repulsive.