@article{ref1,
title="Spontaneous emergence of counterclockwise vortex motion in assemblies of pedestrians roaming within an enclosure",
journal="Scientific reports",
year="2022",
author="Echeverría-Huarte, Iñaki and Nicolas, Alexandre and Hidalgo, Raúl Cruz and Garcimartín, Angel and Zuriguel, Iker",
volume="12",
number="1",
pages="e2647-e2647",
abstract="The emergence of coherent vortices has been observed in a wide variety of many-body systems such as animal flocks, bacteria, colloids, vibrated granular materials or human crowds. Here, we experimentally demonstrate that pedestrians roaming within an enclosure also form vortex-like patterns which, intriguingly, only rotate counterclockwise. By implementing simple numerical simulations, we evidence that the development of swirls in many-particle systems can be described as a phase transition in which both the density of agents and their dissipative interactions with the boundaries play a determinant role. Also, for the specific case of pedestrians, we show that the preference of right-handed people (the majority in our experiments) to turn leftwards when facing a wall is the symmetry breaking mechanism needed to trigger the global counterclockwise rotation observed.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="2045-2322",
doi="10.1038/s41598-022-06493-0",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-06493-0"
}