Evolution of networks

2011

How a complex network is connected crucially impacts its dynamics and function. Percolation, the transition to extensive connectedness upon gradual addition of links, was long believed to be continuous but recent numerical evidence on "explosive percolation" suggests that it might as well be discontinuous if links compete for addition. Here we analyze the microscopic mechanisms underlying discontinuous percolation processes and reveal a strong impact of single link additions. We show that in generic competitive percolation processes, including those displaying explosive percolation, single links do not induce a discontinuous gap in the largest cluster size in the thermodynamic limit. Nevertheless, our results highlight that for large finite systems single links may still induce observable gaps because gap sizes scale weakly algebraically with system size. Several essentially macroscopic clusters coexist immediately before the transition, thus announcing discontinuous percolation. These results explain how single links may drastically change macroscopic connectivity in networks where links add competitively.

Physical Review Letters, 2009

We study scale-free networks constructed via a cooperative Achlioptas growth process. Links between nodes are introduced in order to produce a scale-free graph with given exponent λ for the degree distribution, but the choice of each new link depends on the mass of the clusters that this link will merge. Networks constructed via this biased procedure show a percolation transition which strongly differs from the one observed in standard percolation, where links are introduced just randomly. The different growth process leads to a phase transition with a non-vanishing percolation threshold already for λ > λc ∼ 2.2. More interestingly, the transition is continuous when λ ≤ 3 but becomes discontinuous when λ > 3. This may have important consequences both for the structure of networks and for the dynamics of processes taking place on them.

Physical Review E, 2013

Percolation, the formation of a macroscopic connected component, is a key feature in the description of complex networks. The dynamical properties of a variety of systems can be understood in terms of percolation, including the robustness of power grids and information networks, the spreading of epidemics and forest fires, and the stability of gene regulatory networks. Recent studies have shown that if network edges are added "competitively" in undirected networks, the onset of percolation is abrupt or "explosive." The unusual qualitative features of this phase transition have been the subject of much recent attention. Here we generalize this previously studied network growth process from undirected networks to directed networks and use finite-size scaling theory to find several scaling exponents. We find that this process is also characterized by a very rapid growth in the giant component, but that this growth is not as sudden as in undirected networks.

We introduce a model for dynamic networks, where the links or the strengths of the links change over time. We solve the model by mapping dynamic networks to the problem of directed percolation, where the direction corresponds to the time evolution of the network. We show that the dynamic network undergoes a percolation phase transition at a critical concentration pc, that decreases with the rate r at which the network links are changed. The behavior near criticality is universal and independent of r. We find that for dynamic random networks fundamental laws are changed. i) The size of the giant component at criticality scales with the network size N for all values of r, rather than as N 2/3 in static networks. ii) In the presence of a broad distribution of disorder, the optimal path length between two nodes in a dynamic network scales as N 1/2 , compared to N 1/3 in a static network.

Nature Communications

Percolation establishes the connectivity of complex networks and is one of the most fundamental critical phenomena for the study of complex systems. On simple networks, percolation displays a second-order phase transition; on multiplex networks, the percolation transition can become discontinuous. However, little is known about percolation in networks with higher-order interactions. Here, we show that percolation can be turned into a fully fledged dynamical process when higher-order interactions are taken into account. By introducing signed triadic interactions, in which a node can regulate the interactions between two other nodes, we define triadic percolation. We uncover that in this paradigmatic model the connectivity of the network changes in time and that the order parameter undergoes a period doubling and a route to chaos. We provide a general theory for triadic percolation which accurately predicts the full phase diagram on random graphs as confirmed by extensive numerical si...

Physical Review Letters, 2012

As a fundamental structural transition in complex networks, core percolation is related to a wide range of important problems. Yet, previous theoretical studies of core percolation have been focusing on the classical Erdős-Rényi random networks with Poisson degree distribution, which are quite unlike many real-world networks with scale-free or fat-tailed degree distributions. Here we show that core percolation can be analytically studied for complex networks with arbitrary degree distributions. We derive the condition for core percolation and find that purely scale-free networks have no core for any degree exponents. We show that for undirected networks if core percolation occurs then it is always continuous while for directed networks it becomes discontinuous when the in-and out-degree distributions are different. We also apply our theory to real-world directed networks and find, surprisingly, that they often have much larger core sizes as compared to random models. These findings would help us better understand the interesting interplay between the structural and dynamical properties of complex networks. Network science has emerged as a prominent field in complex system research, which provides us a novel perspective to better understand complexity[1-3]. In the last decade considerable advances about structural and dynamical properties of complex networks have been made[4-6]. Among them, structural transitions in networks were extensively studied due to their big impacts on numerous dynamical processes on networks. Particularly interesting are the emergence of a giant connected component[7-10] , k-core percolation[11-13], k-clique percolation[14, 15], and explosive percolation[16-18]. These structural transitions affect many properties of networks, e.g. robustness and resilience to breakdowns[9, 19, 20], cascading failure in interdependent networks[21-24],

Computing Research Repository, 2001

Complex networks describe a wide range of systems in nature and society. Frequently cited examples include the cell, a network of chemicals linked by chemical reactions, and the Internet, a network of routers and computers connected by physical links. While traditionally these systems have been modeled as random graphs, it is increasingly recognized that the topology and evolution of real networks are governed by robust organizing principles. This article reviews the recent advances in the field of complex networks, focusing on the statistical mechanics of network topology and dynamics. After reviewing the empirical data that motivated the recent interest in networks, the authors discuss the main models and analytical tools, covering random graphs, small-world and scale-free networks, the emerging theory of evolving networks, and the interplay between topology and the network's robustness against failures and attacks.

Physical Review E, 2002

Many complex networks in nature have directed links, a property that affects the network's navigability and large-scale topology. Here we study the percolation properties of such directed scale-free networks with correlated in and out degree distributions. We derive a phase diagram that indicates the existence of three regimes, determined by the values of the degree exponents. In the first regime we regain the known directed percolation mean field exponents. In contrast, the second and third regimes are characterized by anomalous exponents, which we calculate analytically. In the third regime the network is resilient to random dilution, i.e., the percolation threshold is pc → 1. 02.50.Cw, 05.40.a, 05.50.+q, 64.60.Ak

2012

Abstract We show that the probability of source routing success in dynamic networks, where the link up-down dynamics is governed by a time-varying stochastic process, exhibit critical phase-transition (percolation) phenomena as a function of the end-to-end message latency per unit path length. We evaluate the probability of routing success on dynamic network (1D and 2D) lattices with links going up and down as per an arbitrary binary-valued stationary random process (such as a Markov process), in a source-routing framework.

Complex networks appear in almost every aspect of science and technology. Previous work in network theory has focused primarily on analyzing single networks that do not interact with other networks, despite the fact that many real-world networks interact with and depend on each other. Very recently an analytical framework for studying the percolation properties of interacting networks has been introduced. Here we review the analytical framework and the results for percolation laws for a Network Of Networks (NONs) formed by n interdependent random networks. The percolation properties of a network of networks differ greatly from those of single isolated networks. In particular, because the constituent networks of a NON are connected by node dependencies, a NON is subject to cascading failure. When there is strong interdependent coupling between networks, the percolation transition is discontinuous (first-order) phase transition, unlike the wellknown continuous second-order transition in single isolated networks. Moreover, although networks with broader degree distributions, e.g., scale-free networks, are more robust when analyzed as single networks, they become more vulnerable in a NON. We also review the effect of space embedding on network vulnerability. It is shown that for spatially embedded networks any finite fraction of dependency nodes will lead to abrupt transition.