Entropy Affects the Competition of Ordered Phases

The effect of entropy at low noises is investigated in five-strategy logit-rule-driven spatial evolutionary potential games exhibiting two-fold or three-fold degenerate ground states. The non-zero elements of the payoff matrix define two subsystems which are equivalent to an Ising or a three-state Potts model depending on whether the players are constrained to use only the first two or the last three strategies. Due to the equivalence of these models to spin systems, we can use the concepts and methods of statistical physics when studying the phase transitions. We argue that the greater entropy content of the Ising phase plays an important role in its stabilization when the magnitude of the Potts component is equal to or slightly greater than the strength of the Ising component. If the noise is increased in these systems, then the presence of the higher entropy state can cause a kind of social dilemma in which the players' average income is reduced in the stable Ising phase following a first-order phase transition.