Emergence of Aggregation from Mutual Beneficial Interaction

Aggregation is widespread in the nature, and mutual benefit is considered as an important factor causing it. An agent-based model is proposed to demonstrate emergence of aggregations in a self-organized system, in which agents move according to their corresponding benefits obtained from interactions. The concept of entropy is introduced as a measure of aggregation degree of the system, and how the steady-state entropy varies with parameters is examined. Robustness of the aggregation system is detected by adding randomness when agents move, and it turns out that a small probability of moving rationally can surprisingly give rise to aggregation.