Coordination without communication: beyond optimisation and geometric Brownian motion

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Milburn, G J, Ringsmuth, A K
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Milburn, G J
Ringsmuth, A K
author_facet Milburn, G J
Ringsmuth, A K
contents We introduce a physically grounded framework for coordination in a population based on information constrained feedback in a partially observed stochastic dynamical system. Population size evolves as a continuous time birth death Markov process whose transition rates respond to a shared stochastic measurement signal correlated with the underlying population state. Individuals neither communicate directly nor optimise strategies; instead, coordination emerges from macro to micro feedback mediated by imperfect common information. We show that geometric Brownian motion arises as a limiting case of the conditional dynamics when measurement strength and population statistics satisfy suitable conditions. More generally, varying the signal to noise properties of the measurement channel produces a wider class of stochastic growth processes, including diffusive and jump like regimes, even though ensemble average growth remains exponential. In an appropriate limit the framework recovers the stochastic multiplicative growth model of Peters and Adamou, providing a physical interpretation of coordination as inference and feedback under partial observability.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_30950
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Coordination without communication: beyond optimisation and geometric Brownian motion
Milburn, G J
Ringsmuth, A K
Populations and Evolution
Physics and Society
Applications
We introduce a physically grounded framework for coordination in a population based on information constrained feedback in a partially observed stochastic dynamical system. Population size evolves as a continuous time birth death Markov process whose transition rates respond to a shared stochastic measurement signal correlated with the underlying population state. Individuals neither communicate directly nor optimise strategies; instead, coordination emerges from macro to micro feedback mediated by imperfect common information. We show that geometric Brownian motion arises as a limiting case of the conditional dynamics when measurement strength and population statistics satisfy suitable conditions. More generally, varying the signal to noise properties of the measurement channel produces a wider class of stochastic growth processes, including diffusive and jump like regimes, even though ensemble average growth remains exponential. In an appropriate limit the framework recovers the stochastic multiplicative growth model of Peters and Adamou, providing a physical interpretation of coordination as inference and feedback under partial observability.
title Coordination without communication: beyond optimisation and geometric Brownian motion
topic Populations and Evolution
Physics and Society
Applications
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.30950