Sharp conditions to avoid collisions in singular Cucker-Smale interactions

Abstract

We consider the Cucker-Smale flocking model with a singular communication weight $\psi(s) = s^{-\alpha}$ with $\alpha > 0$. We provide a critical value of the exponent $\alpha$ in the communication weight leading to global regularity of solutions or finite-time collision between particles. For $\alpha \geq 1$, we show that there is no collision between particles in finite time if they are placed in different positions initially. For $\alpha\geq 2$ we investigate a version of the Cucker-Smale model with expanded singularity i.e. with weight $\psi_\delta(s) = (s-\delta)^{-\alpha}$, $\delta\geq 0$. For such model we provide a uniform with respect to the number of particles estimate that controls the $\delta$-distance between particles. In case of $\delta = 0$ it reduces to the estimate of non-collisioness.