cs.IRJun 11, 2026

ADORE: Iterative Query Expansion with Retrieval-Grounded Relevance Feedback

Authors: Amin Bigdeli, Negar Arabzadeh, Radin Hamidi Rad, Sajad Ebrahimi, Charles L. A. Clarke, Ebrahim Bagheri

Organizations: University of Waterloo · University of California, Berkeley · Mila – Quebec AI Institute · University of Toronto

Abstract

LLM-based query expansion improves retrieval by enriching the original query with additional context. Yet most methods remain generation-driven, producing plausible pseudo-documents or expansions without checking how the target corpus responds. This can introduce retrieval drift, amplify misleading vocabulary, or miss terms that distinguish relevant from non-relevant documents. We argue that effective expansion requires retrieval-grounded feedback, not just single-pass generation or unverified iteration. We introduce ADORE (ADapt, Observe, Relevance Evaluate), an iterative framework that turns retrieval outcomes into feedback for the next expansion. At each round, an LLM generates pseudo-passages, a retriever exposes the corpus response, and a relevance assessor evaluates retrieved documents against the original query. These judgments identify what to reinforce, what remains undercovered, and what to suppress. Across TREC Deep Learning, BEIR, and BRIGHT, ADORE consistently outperforms strong query expansion baselines with notable improvements across nearly all evaluation settings, improving average nDCG@10 by 24.5% over BM25 and 3.6% over the strongest prior query expansion method on BEIR, and by 122.9% over BM25 and 9.2% over the best query expansion baseline on BRIGHT. Our code and data are publicly available.

Explore similar work

CardsList
  1. A Reproducibility Study of LLM-Based Query Reformulation

    Apr 30, 2026Amin Bigdeli, Radin Hamidi Rad, Hai Son Le +4ReframingReproducibility

  2. CeQe: Grounding Lexical Retrieval in Semantic Evidence

    Aug 1, 2026Adam Kahirov, Umesh Deshpande, Swaminathan SundararamanFactual RecallVisual Grounding