An altruistic resource-sharing mechanism for synchronization: The energy-speed-accuracy tradeoff

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zhang, Dongliang, Cao, Yuansheng, Ouyang, Qi, Tu, Yuhai
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Zhang, Dongliang
Cao, Yuansheng
Ouyang, Qi
Tu, Yuhai
author_facet Zhang, Dongliang
Cao, Yuansheng
Ouyang, Qi
Tu, Yuhai
contents Synchronization among a group of active agents is ubiquitous in nature. Although synchronization based on direct interactions between agents described by the Kuramoto model is well understood, the other general mechanism based on indirect interactions among agents sharing limited resources are less known. Here, we propose a minimal thermodynamically consistent model for the altruistic resource-sharing (ARS) mechanism wherein resources are needed for individual agent to advance but a more advanced agent has a lower competence to obtain resources. We show that while differential competence in ARS mechanism provides a negative feedback leading to synchronization it also breaks detailed balance and thus requires additional energy dissipation besides the cost of driving individual agents. By solving the model analytically, our study reveals a general tradeoff relation between the total energy dissipation rate and the two key performance measures of the system: average speed and synchronization accuracy. For a fixed dissipation rate, there is a distinct speed-accuracy Pareto front traversed by the scarcity of resources: scarcer resources lead to slower speed but more accurate synchronization. Increasing energy dissipation eases this tradeoff by pushing the speed-accuracy Pareto front outwards. The connections of our work to realistic biological systems such as the KaiABC system in cyanobacterial circadian clock and other theoretical results based on thermodynamic uncertainty relation are also discussed.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_02242
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle An altruistic resource-sharing mechanism for synchronization: The energy-speed-accuracy tradeoff
Zhang, Dongliang
Cao, Yuansheng
Ouyang, Qi
Tu, Yuhai
Statistical Mechanics
Biological Physics
Synchronization among a group of active agents is ubiquitous in nature. Although synchronization based on direct interactions between agents described by the Kuramoto model is well understood, the other general mechanism based on indirect interactions among agents sharing limited resources are less known. Here, we propose a minimal thermodynamically consistent model for the altruistic resource-sharing (ARS) mechanism wherein resources are needed for individual agent to advance but a more advanced agent has a lower competence to obtain resources. We show that while differential competence in ARS mechanism provides a negative feedback leading to synchronization it also breaks detailed balance and thus requires additional energy dissipation besides the cost of driving individual agents. By solving the model analytically, our study reveals a general tradeoff relation between the total energy dissipation rate and the two key performance measures of the system: average speed and synchronization accuracy. For a fixed dissipation rate, there is a distinct speed-accuracy Pareto front traversed by the scarcity of resources: scarcer resources lead to slower speed but more accurate synchronization. Increasing energy dissipation eases this tradeoff by pushing the speed-accuracy Pareto front outwards. The connections of our work to realistic biological systems such as the KaiABC system in cyanobacterial circadian clock and other theoretical results based on thermodynamic uncertainty relation are also discussed.
title An altruistic resource-sharing mechanism for synchronization: The energy-speed-accuracy tradeoff
topic Statistical Mechanics
Biological Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.02242