Static Pruning Across Sparse Retrieval Regimes: What Transfers, What Breaks, and What Still Helps

Excerpt

arXiv:2608.16309v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Static pruning is widely used to accelerate sparse neural retrieval, yet existing studies each validate their conclusions within a single custom pipeline, leaving it unclear which findings transfer to modern engines with different index organizations and dynamic pruning mechanisms. We present the first cross-engine pruning portability study, evaluating static pruning strategies across three engines - a controlled C++ pipeline (exhaustive inverted