{"paper":{"title":"Noise-induced transition to stop-and-go waves in single-file traffic rationalized by an analogy with Kapitza's inverted pendulum","license":"http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":[],"primary_cat":"physics.soc-ph","authors_text":"Alexandre Nicolas, Andreas Schadschneider, Antoine Tordeux, David Rodney, Jakob Cordes, Oscar Dufour","submitted_at":"2025-03-30T21:16:03Z","abstract_excerpt":"Stop-and-go waves in vehicular traffic are commonly explained as a linear collective instability induced by e.g. response delays. We explore an alternative mechanism that more faithfully mirrors oscillation formation in dense single-file traffic. Stochastic noise plays a key role in this model; as it is increased, the base (uniform) flow abruptly switches to stop-and-go dynamics despite its unconditional linear stability. We elucidate the instability mechanism and rationalize it quantitatively by likening the system to a cyclically driven Kapitza pendulum."},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2503.23594","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2503.23594/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}