Role of Zealots on the Adaptive Voter Model

TL;DR

This paper studies how zealots influence opinion dynamics in an adaptive voter model, revealing different magnetism distributions and relaxation times depending on zealot prevalence and network connectivity.

Contribution

Introduces an adaptive voter model with zealots, providing analytical insights into how zealots affect opinion distribution and relaxation times in different regimes.

Findings

Magnetism distribution is Gaussian-like when zealots dominate.

Relaxation time is population-size independent with many zealots.

Relaxation time grows exponentially with population size when susceptibles dominate.

Abstract

The voter model has been extensive studied as an opinion dynamic model, and the role of the zealots has only been discussed recently. We introduce the adaptive voter model with zealots and show that the final distribution of the magnetism can be separated into two regions depending on the number of zealots as well as the probability of forming link. When the fraction of zealots is dominated in the population, the probability distribution of magnetism follows a Gaussian-like distribution and the relaxation time is population-size independent. When the population is dominated by the susceptible agents, the relaxation time is proportional to the exponential of the population size. We have found the analytical solution of the relaxation time in the limiting cases and explained the difference of the relaxation time in these two regions based on the approximation method.