2008/03/31 by Sandro Meloni, S. Meloni, J. Gomez-Gardenes +5 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Complex Network Analysis Techniques #Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence #Theoretical and Computational Physics #physics.soc-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.100.208701
published as Physical Review Letters 100, 208701 (2008) · Final version appeared in PRL. Minor changes with respect to the previous version
openalex publication_date 2008/05/20 · arxiv created 2008/05/21 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We propose a model of random diffusion to investigate flow fluctuations in complex networks. We derive an analytical law showing that the dependence of fluctuations with the mean traffic in a network is ruled by the delicate interplay of three factors, respectively, of dynamical, topological and statistical nature. In particular, we demonstrate that the existence of a power-law scaling characterizing the flow fluctuations at every node in the network cannot be claimed. We show the validity of this scaling breakdown under quite general topological and dynamical situations by means of different traffic algorithms and by analyzing real data.