Reduced model from a reaction-diffusion system of collective motion of camphor boats

Abstract

Various motions of camphor boats in the water channel exhibit both a homogeneous and an inhomogeneous state, depending on the number of boats, when unidirectional motion along an annular water channel can be observed even with only one camphor boat. In a theoretical research, the unidirectional motion is represented by a traveling wave solution in a model. Since the experimental results described above are thought of as a kind of bifurcation phenomena, we would like to investigate a linearized eigenvalue problem in order to prove the destabilization of a traveling wave solution. However, the eigenvalue problem is too difficult to analyze even if the number of camphor boats is 2. Hence we need to make a reduction on the model. In the present paper, we apply the center manifold theory and reduce the model to an ordinary differential system.