Universal fluctuations of first discoveries in competitive exploration

Abstract

Random exploration is usually quantified by how fast new space is found, from the range of a single walker to the territory collectively covered by many walkers. In competitive exploration, first arrival secures an exclusive resource, as when foragers compete for food items or agents capture distributed targets. It is then no longer enough to know which sites have been discovered: one must determine, for each discovered site, which searcher reached it first. We introduce the discovery share $X_n$, the fraction of the first $n$ collective discoveries secured by a tagged searcher. For two identical competitors, exchange symmetry fixes $\langle X_n\rangle=1/2$, but the central question is whether this equal split emerges in each long exploration history or only on average, i.e. whether early competitive advantages are erased or persist. Here we show that the answer is controlled by the spectral dimension $d_s$, defined by the large-time decay of the probability that a single searcher is at its starting point after $t$ steps, $p_0(t)\sim t^{-d_s/2}$. Across ordinary diffusion, long-range superdiffusion and subdiffusion induced by crowding or memory, $d_s$ separates persistent randomness in recurrent exploration $(d_s<2)$, anomalously slow non-Gaussian concentration for $2\le d_s<3$, and Gaussian concentration, logarithmically corrected at $d_s=3$, for $d_s\ge3$. For $d_s\ge2$, we derive exact asymptotic variances, including prefactors, and the discovery scale on which competitive imbalances are erased. Two-point correlations of first-discovery labels identify the memory mechanism behind these regimes. The same phase structure persists under changes in geometry, competitor heterogeneity, number of competitors and memory, revealing a general fluctuation theory of first-arrival inequalities.