Some observations on the interaction of recombination and self-adaptation in evolution strategies

The performance of the multirecombinant (μ/μ, λ)-evolution strategy (ES) with σ-self-adaptation (σSA) is investigated on the sphere model. The investigation includes the computation of the maximal performance of an ES using recombination can reach when the mutation strength is optimally adjusted during the whole evolution. The comparison between the strategies with and without σSA shows that SA (self-adaptation) is not always able to drive the ES in its optimal working regime, although it still guarantees linear convergence order. The static and dynamic aspects of SA are discussed and it is shown that the learning parameter has a sensible influence on the progress rate