Scale-free network models with accelerating growth

Abstract

Complex networks are everywhere. A typical example is software network. Basing on analyzing evolutive structure of the software networks, we consider accelerating growth of network as power-law growth, which can be more easily generalized to real systems than linear growth. For accelerating growth via a power law and scale-free state with preferential linking, we focus on exploring the generic property of complex networks. Generally, two scenarios are possible. In one of them, the links are undirected. In the other scenario, the links are directed. We propose two models that can predict the emergence of power-law growth and scale-free state in good agreement with these two scenarios and can simulate much more real systems than existing scale-free network models. Moreover, we use the obtained predictions to fit accelerating growth and the connectivity distribution of software networks describing scale-free structure. The combined analytical and numerical results indicate the emergence of a novel set of models that considerably enhance our ability to understand and characterize complex networks, whose applicability reaches far beyond the quoted examples.