Emergent scale-free networks.

ABSTRACT: Many complex systems-from the Internet to social, biological, and communication networks-are thought to exhibit scale-free structure. However, prevailing explanations require that networks grow over time, an assumption that fails in some real-world settings. Here, we explain how scale-free structure can emerge without growth through network self-organization. Beginning with an arbitrary network, we allow connections to detach from random nodes and then reconnect under a mixture of preferential and random attachment. While the numbers of nodes and edges remain fixed, the degree distribution evolves toward a power-law with an exponent γ=1+1p that depends only on the proportion p of preferential (rather than random) attachment. Applying our model to several real networks, we infer p

SUBMITTER: Lynn CW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11223655 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature