Topological models of emergent dynamics

In this talk we will introduce a new class of flocking models that feature emergence of global alignment via only local communication. Such models have been sought for since the introduction of Cucker-Smale dynamics which showed global unconditional alignment for models with substantially strong non-local interaction kernels. We introduce a set of new structural components into the communication protocol, including singular kernel, and topological adaptive diffusion, that enhance alignment mechanisms with purely local interactions. We highlight some challenges that arise in the problem of global well-posendess and stability of flocks.