Emergence of scale-free networks from local connectivity and communication trade-offs

TL;DR

This paper presents a new local connectivity and communication trade-off mechanism that explains the emergence of scale-free networks through edge addition, resulting in power-law degree distributions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel network evolution model based on local trade-offs, demonstrating how scale-free structures can emerge without growth in the number of nodes.

Findings

Power-law degree distributions emerge under certain parameters

The mechanism explains scale-free behavior from local rules

Simulation results support the proposed model

Abstract

We introduce a new mechanism of connectivity evolution in networks to account for the emergence of scale-free behavior. The mechanism works on a fixed set of nodes and promotes growth from a minimally connected initial topology by the addition of edges. A new edge is added between two nodes depending on the trade-off between a gain and a cost function of local connectivity and communication properties. We report on simulation results that indicate the appearance of power-law distributions of node degrees for selected parameter combinations.