arXiv · cond-mat/0007048
Resilience of the Internet to random breakdowns
Abstract
A common property of many large networks, including the Internet, is that the connectivity of the various nodes follows a scale-free power-law distribution, P(k)=ck^-a. We study the stability of such networks with respect to crashes, such as random removal of sites. Our approach, based on percolation theory, leads to a general condition for the critical fraction of nodes, p_c, that need to be removed before the network disintegrates. We show that for a<=3 the transition never takes place, unless the network is finite. In the special case of the Internet (a=2.5), we find that it is impressively robust, where p_c is approximately 0.99.
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Reuven Cohen, Keren Erez, Daniel ben-Avraham, Shlomo Havlin. 2000-10-19. Resilience of the Internet to random breakdowns. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.85.4626
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