arXiv Machine Learning By Wendi Li, Shawn Im, Sharon Li

Cyclical Entropy Eruption: Entropy Dynamics in Agent Reinforcement Learning

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The paper introduces the phenomenon of cyclical entropy eruption in agent reinforcement learning, where entropy rises sharply and then subsides in recurring cycles, unlike the steady low entropy seen in single‑turn reasoning RL. It breaks this dynamic into three phases, offering theoretical and empirical insights into the mechanisms driving the oscillation. The authors propose SEAL, a lightweight auxiliary loss that separates correct and incorrect trajectories in representation space, which stabilizes training and improves downstream agent performance across various benchmarks and algorithms.

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