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ZENODO
Preprint . 2026
License: CC BY
Data sources: ZENODO
ZENODO
Preprint . 2026
License: CC BY
Data sources: Datacite
ZENODO
Preprint . 2026
License: CC BY
Data sources: Datacite
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Streaming Epistemic Geometry in Large Language Models: Token-Level Dynamics of Certainty, Hallucination, and Refusal Across Five Model Families

Authors: Alieksieienko, Inna;

Streaming Epistemic Geometry in Large Language Models: Token-Level Dynamics of Certainty, Hallucination, and Refusal Across Five Model Families

Abstract

We introduce streaming epistemic geometry — the first token-by-token tracking of epistemic subspace projections during autoregressive generation in large language models. Using PCA-based subspace analysis on five independently trained model families (Llama-3.1-8B, Mistral-7B, Gemma-2-9B, Qwen2.5-7B, Llama-3.2-3B; 4 organisations, 3B–9B parameters), we show that hallucination, refusal, and certainty each produce a distinct dynamic signature in the residual stream detectable from the very first generated token. A logistic classifier trained on the first-token projection score achieves leave-one-out AUC = 0.991 on Llama-3.1-8B and transfers zero-shot to TruthfulQA. Our geometric detector and an output-entropy baseline capture complementary failure modes: the subspace method flags factual-citation errors while entropy flags physically improbable myths. All code and data included for full reproducibility.

Keywords

mechanistic interpretability, epistemic uncertainty, hallucination detection, residual stream, LLM safety

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selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
0
Average
Average
Average
Green