{
  "abstract": "Multiplayer social dilemmas on hypergraphs show a variety of emergent phenomena, which has been attributed to group interactions. Here we test whether pairwise dynamics can reproduce them as well. We derive the mesoscopic Langevin equation of a testbed model and find the operator content of absorbing phase transitions: a directed-percolation line, a tricritical point, and a first-order region whose spinodal is the explosive transition. In our analysis, three-player games only set the values of the Landau coefficients. We construct a strictly pairwise model with short-lived memory, in which every event involves at most two entities, that reproduces these coefficients term by term and has exactly the same mean-field fixed points. Simulations confirm that the two dynamics share mean-field critical and tricritical scaling and the size of the critical mass, and that a purely three-player game on a two-dimensional triangular lattice lies in the directed-percolation class. For these games, the explosive transition and the critical mass therefore do not require group interactions, and the critical behavior is that of the pairwise theory.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": "2610.18506",
  "author_total": 2,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Pablo Villegas"
    },
    {
      "name": "Sandro Meloni"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/1k75r13pv60gg.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2610.18506",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "1k75r13pv60gg",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.18506",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "cond-mat.stat-mech"
    ],
    [
      "arxiv",
      "physics.soc-ph"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "3104|Theoretical and Computational Physics"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7221835102",
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2610.18506",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-13",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/1k75r13pv60gg.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:29:11Z",
      "native_id": "2610.18506",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.18506"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:cond-mat.stat-mech",
      "subfield": "statistical-nonlinear"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Directed percolation in higher-order social dilemmas",
  "title_text": "Directed percolation in higher-order social dilemmas",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:29:11Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/1k75r13pv60gg",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": []
}