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arXiv · 2607.18904

Answer-Reconstruction Search Density: Measuring the Query and Source Work Compressed by Conversational Answers

Benjamin Tannenbaum
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Abstract

Conversational systems can collapse a visible sequence of web queries, result inspections, and source comparisons into a single synthesized answer. Existing retrieval metrics evaluate ranking, effort, or factual support, but they do not quantify the minimum conventional search work represented by a completed answer. We define answer-reconstruction search density (\ARSD): the minimum number of distinct query actions required, under a fixed and dated reconstruction policy, to support a target share of atomic retrievable answer units. A parallel page-density measure separates query compression from source compression.

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Benjamin Tannenbaum. 2026-07-21. Answer-Reconstruction Search Density: Measuring the Query and Source Work Compressed by Conversational Answers. https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.18904

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