Percolation in Multiplex Networks with Overlap

TL;DR

This paper investigates how link overlap in multiplex networks influences their robustness and percolation phase transition, revealing that overlap can enhance system resilience and alter critical behavior.

Contribution

It introduces an analysis of link overlap effects on multiplex network robustness, a factor often overlooked in prior studies.

Findings

Overlap increases network robustness.

Overlap alters the critical percolation threshold.

Overlap modifies the nature of the phase transition.

Abstract

From transportation networks to complex infrastructures, and to social and communication networks, a large variety of systems can be described in terms of multiplexes formed by a set of nodes interacting through different networks (layers). Multiplexes may display an increased fragility with respect to the single layers that constitute them. However, so far the overlap of the links in different layers has been mostly neglected, despite the fact that it is an ubiquitous phenomenon in most multiplexes. Here we show that the overlap among layers can improve the robustness of interdependent multiplex systems and change the critical behavior of the percolation phase transition in a complex way.