Incremental formation of scale-free fitness networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces an incremental method for constructing scale-free networks with hidden variables, enabling precise control over network connectivity and size, supported by analytical models and numerical simulations.

Contribution

It presents a novel incremental approach for generating scale-free networks with fixed size and controlled links, including analytical solutions and finite size analysis.

Findings

Analytical solutions for multigraph networks

Finite size effects in simple graphs

Controlled network connectivity during growth

Abstract

In the paper, we present an incremental approach in the construction of scale free networks with hidden variables. The work arises from the necessity to generate that type of networks with a given number of links instead of obtaining a random configurations for a given set of parameters as in the usual literature. I propose an analytical approach of network evolution models gathering information along time based on the construction of a stochastic process on the space of possible networks. The analytical solution is eact in a case of multigraph network, meanwhile in simple graph we deal with important finite size effects. We show the statistical properties of this network such as number of isolated nodes, degree correlations and multilinks, also discussing the limitations of such predictions in real networks. Numerical simulations are used tu support the analytical calculations. On the computational side, such evolutive network construction allows to regulate the connectivity of the network obtaining desired values of connectivity density used as control parameter of the system. As a consequence, an incremental generetive approach is more suitable in those situation we want to control the number of links in the system while the number of nodes are kept fixed.