Critical behavior of the contact process in annealed scale-free networks

TL;DR

This paper investigates the critical behavior of the contact process on annealed scale-free networks, providing analytical and numerical insights into scaling, disorder effects, and differences from quenched networks.

Contribution

It introduces an analytical framework for the contact process on annealed networks and explores disorder effects, highlighting differences from quenched network behavior.

Findings

Analytic critical scaling results for the contact process on annealed networks

Numerical simulations confirm the theoretical predictions

Disorder fluctuations influence the critical behavior and finite-size scaling

Abstract

Critical behavior of the contact process is studied in annealed scale-free networks by mapping it on the random walk problem. We obtain the analytic results for the critical scaling, using the event-driven dynamics approach. These results are confirmed by numerical simulations. The disorder fluctuation induced by the sampling disorder in annealed networks is also explored. Finally, we discuss over the discrepancy of the finite-size-scaling theory in annealed and quenched networks in spirit of the droplet size scale and the linking disorder fluctuation.