Consensus as cooling: a granular gas model for continuous opinions on structured networks

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Uriarte, Carlos, Rodriguez-Lopez, Pablo, Khalil, Nagi
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Uriarte, Carlos
Rodriguez-Lopez, Pablo
Khalil, Nagi
author_facet Uriarte, Carlos
Rodriguez-Lopez, Pablo
Khalil, Nagi
contents A continuous-opinion model accounting for the social compromise propensity is theoretically and numerically analysed. An agent's opinion is represented by a real number that can be changed through social interactions with her neighbours. The proposed dynamics depends on two fundamental parameters, $α\in[-1,1]$ and $β\ge 0$. If an interaction takes place between two agents, their relative opinions decreases an amount given by $α$. The probability of two neighbours to interact is proportional to the $β$-power of their relative opinions. We unveil the behaviour of the system for all physical relevant values of the parameters and several representative interaction networks. When $α\in(-1,1)$ and $β\ge 0$, the system always reaches consensus, with all agents having the mean initial opinion, provided the interaction network is connected. The approach to consensus can be characterized by means of the mean opinion and the temperature (or opinion dispersion) of each agent. Three scenarios have been identified. When the agents are well mixed, as with all-to-all interactions, a pre-consensus regime is seen, with all agents having zero mean opinion and the same temperature, following the Haff's law of granular gases. A similar regime is observed with Erdös-Rényi and Barabási-Albert networks: mean opinions are zero but agents with different degrees have different temperatures, though still following the Haff's law. Finally, the case of a square 2D lattice has been carefully analyzed, by starting from the derivation of closed set of hydrodynamic-like equations using the Chapman-Enskog method ...
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_06807
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Consensus as cooling: a granular gas model for continuous opinions on structured networks
Uriarte, Carlos
Rodriguez-Lopez, Pablo
Khalil, Nagi
Physics and Society
A continuous-opinion model accounting for the social compromise propensity is theoretically and numerically analysed. An agent's opinion is represented by a real number that can be changed through social interactions with her neighbours. The proposed dynamics depends on two fundamental parameters, $α\in[-1,1]$ and $β\ge 0$. If an interaction takes place between two agents, their relative opinions decreases an amount given by $α$. The probability of two neighbours to interact is proportional to the $β$-power of their relative opinions. We unveil the behaviour of the system for all physical relevant values of the parameters and several representative interaction networks. When $α\in(-1,1)$ and $β\ge 0$, the system always reaches consensus, with all agents having the mean initial opinion, provided the interaction network is connected. The approach to consensus can be characterized by means of the mean opinion and the temperature (or opinion dispersion) of each agent. Three scenarios have been identified. When the agents are well mixed, as with all-to-all interactions, a pre-consensus regime is seen, with all agents having zero mean opinion and the same temperature, following the Haff's law of granular gases. A similar regime is observed with Erdös-Rényi and Barabási-Albert networks: mean opinions are zero but agents with different degrees have different temperatures, though still following the Haff's law. Finally, the case of a square 2D lattice has been carefully analyzed, by starting from the derivation of closed set of hydrodynamic-like equations using the Chapman-Enskog method ...
title Consensus as cooling: a granular gas model for continuous opinions on structured networks
topic Physics and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.06807