Network Robustness Revisited

2022/02/16 by Thilo Gross, Thilo Groß, Gross, Thilo +2 · 1 citation
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Complex Network Analysis Techniques #FOS: Physical sciences #Graph theory and applications #Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence #Physics and Society (physics.soc-ph) #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #cond-mat.soft #physics.soc-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2202.07911

33 pages, 6 figures

arxiv created 2022/02/16 · openalex publication_date 2022/02/16 · arxiv updated 2022/02/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04

Abstract

The robustness of complex networks was one of the first phenomena studied after the inception of network science. However, many contemporary presentations of this theory do not go beyond the original papers. Here we revisit this topic with the aim of providing a deep but didactic introduction. We pay particular attention to some complications in the computation of giant component sizes that are commonly ignored. Following an intuitive procedure, we derive simple formulas that capture the effect of common attack scenarios on arbitrary (configuration model) networks. We hope that this gentle but mathematically-grounded introduction will help new researchers discover this beautiful area of network science.

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• Robustness and resilience of complex networks

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