Planar growth generates scale-free networks

Haslett, Garvin, Bullock, Seth and Brede, Markus (2016) Planar growth generates scale-free networks. Journal of Complex Networks, 1-26. (doi:10.1093/comnet/cnw005). (In Press)

Record type: Article

Abstract

In this paper we introduce a model of spatial network growth in which nodes are placed at randomly selected locations on a unit square in R 2 , forming new connections to old nodes subject to the constraint that edges do not cross. The resulting network has a power law degree distribution, high clustering and the small world property. We argue that these characteristics are a consequence of the two defining features of the network formation procedure; growth and planarity conservation. We demonstrate that the model can be understood as a variant of random Apollonian growth and further propose a one parameter family of models with the Random Apollonian Network and the Deterministic Apollonian Network as extreme cases and our model as a midpoint between them. We then relax the planarity constraint by allowing edge crossings with some probability and find a smooth crossover from power law to exponential degree distributions when this probability is increased.

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