DualResearch: Entropy-Gated Dual-Graph Retrieval for Answer Reconstruction in Deep Research Agents

Jinxin Shi, Zongsheng Cao, Runmin Ma, Yusong Hu, Jie Zhou, Yue Fan, Xin Li, Lei Bai, Liang He, Bo Zhang


Abstract
Deep Research Agents (DR-Agents) extend LLMs with multi-step retrieval, tool use, and intermediate computation to solve complex problems. However, their execution logs often contain redundant context, noisy evidence, and brittle dependencies among intermediate decisions. As a result, final answers can be sensitive to irrelevant or weakly verified information. We propose DualResearch, a log-based post-processing framework for answer reconstruction. Given a query and a completed DR-Agent log, DualResearch normalizes the log into event records and constructs two evidence graphs: a breadth semantic graph for declarative evidence and a depth causal graph for procedural provenance. It then retrieves breadth nodes and depth paths, assigns higher weights to retrieval channels with more concentrated retained candidate distributions, and jointly considers relevance and cross-view agreement to select evidence for reconstruction; the concentration measure reflects retrieval confidence rather than factual correctness. Experiments on HLE, GAIA, and GPQA show consistent accuracy improvements over underlying DR-Agents and controlled log-reuse baselines.
Anthology ID:
2026.findings-emnlp.875
Volume:
Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2026
Month:
October
Year:
2026
Address:
Budapest, Hungary
Editors:
Hung-Yi Lee, Sunipa Dev, Jessy Li, Desmond Elliott
Venue:
Findings
SIG:
SIGDAT
Publisher:
Association for Computational Linguistics
Note:
Pages:
18486–18501
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-emnlp.875/
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Jinxin Shi, Zongsheng Cao, Runmin Ma, Yusong Hu, Jie Zhou, Yue Fan, Xin Li, Lei Bai, Liang He, and Bo Zhang. 2026. DualResearch: Entropy-Gated Dual-Graph Retrieval for Answer Reconstruction in Deep Research Agents. In Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2026, pages 18486–18501, Budapest, Hungary. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):
DualResearch: Entropy-Gated Dual-Graph Retrieval for Answer Reconstruction in Deep Research Agents (Shi et al., Findings 2026)
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PDF:
https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-emnlp.875.pdf