Mean-field imitation dynamics on fast assortative networks

Abstract

The emergence of cooperation in structured populations is fundamental to the success of human societies. Physical and online networks can drive behavioural change by altering who people interact with, thereby modifying social pressures. In this paper, we study imitation dynamics in a population of self-interested agents playing a continuous strategy Prisoner's Dilemma on a dynamically evolving weighted network. In the fast-network regime, we incorporate the edge weights into the strategy evolution before deriving and analysing the large population mean-field limit. Without noise, we establish well-posedness and show the solution collapses to a single Dirac mass. For initially separated clusters, we identify a payoff threshold and sufficient conditions for the overall level of cooperation to increase. We then introduce stochastic strategy updates, and obtain a non-local Fokker-Planck equation in the mean-field limit. We rigorously prove existence and uniqueness of stationary distributions, and show linear stability under sufficient noise. Numerics illustrate that noise can transform the deterministic consensus into stable cooperative stationary behaviour. These findings show that the fast adaptive interactions and stochastic exploration can jointly support the emergence of stable cooperation at a population level.