Promotion of Cooperation Induced by Optional Participation and Adaptive Hyperedge Weights on Hypergraph
The evolutionary mechanisms maintaining cooperation in systems with higher-order interactions remain poorly understood. To address this, we propose an optional public goods game on a weighted hypergraph by incorporating loners and an adaptive hyperedge-weight mechanism to characterize the coevolution of agent participation and group interaction structures. The results show that the synergy factor r governs the overall evolutionary dynamics of the system, driving a transition from full defection to full cooperation. The loner payoff σ exhibits a non-monotonic effect on cooperation, with an optimal value emerging at moderate r that promotes cooperation. The group size in higher-order networks influences the critical thresholds of r and σ by modifying the degree of strategy mixing. Within higher-order networks, the evolution of hyperedge weights amplifies payoff heterogeneity across groups, giving rise to an optimal parameter region where structural heterogeneity and dynamical stability are balanced, thereby sustaining a high level of cooperation. These findings suggest that the emergence and persistence of cooperation originate from the interplay among optional participation, payoff-driven evolutionary dynamics, and adaptive interaction structures.