Fleet Divergence Parameter (ANTS 2026)
Nicholls, B. (2026). The Fleet Divergence Parameter: An Order Parameter for Cognitive Stigmergy in LLM Agent Systems. Submitted to ANTS 2026 — International Conference on Swarm Intelligence.
Abstract
Section titled “Abstract”The Fleet Divergence Parameter Ψ = Syn / (Syn + Red) measures productive divergence in role-differentiated agent fleets. Unlike Vicsek’s alignment parameter φ, which captures consensus, Ψ captures the information-theoretic balance between synergy and redundancy.
Key Results
Section titled “Key Results”- Output quality peaks near Ψ* = 0.588 (inverted-U relationship)
- F = 35.95, p < 0.0001
- R² = 0.423 (explains 42.3% of variance in output quality)
- Subsumes Balch’s K* by 60.6× (ΔR² = 0.551 vs 0.005)
- N = 92 instances, 12 rounds, 56K+ heartbeats
Interactive Dashboard
Section titled “Interactive Dashboard”See the Ψ Dashboard for interactive exploration of the parameter space.