Lyapunov exponent in the Vicsek model

The well-known Vicsek model describes the dynamics of a flock of self-propelled particles (SPPs). Surprisingly, there is no direct measure of the chaotic behavior of such systems. Here, we discuss the dynamical phase transition present in Vicsek systems in light of the largest Lyapunov exponent (LLE), which is numerically computed by following the dynamical evolution in tangent space for up to one million SPPs. As discontinuities in the neighbor weighting factor hinder the computations, we propose a smooth form of the Vicsek model. We find that there is chaotic behavior in the disordered phase, which supports the claim that the LLE can be useful as an indicator of phase transitions even for this out-of-equilibrium system.