Percolation and localisation: Sub-leading eigenvalues of the nonbacktracking matrix

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Martin, James, Rogers, Tim, Zanetti, Luca
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Martin, James
Rogers, Tim
Zanetti, Luca
author_facet Martin, James
Rogers, Tim
Zanetti, Luca
contents The spectrum of the nonbacktracking matrix associated to a network is known to contain fundamental information regarding percolation properties of the network. Indeed, the inverse of its leading eigenvalue is often used as an estimate for the percolation threshold. However, for many networks with nonbacktracking centrality localised on a few nodes, such as networks with a core-periphery structure, this spectral approach badly underestimates the threshold. In this work, we study networks that exhibit this localisation effect by looking beyond the leading eigenvalue and searching deeper into the spectrum of the nonbacktracking matrix. We identify that, when localisation is present, the threshold often more closely aligns with the inverse of one of the sub-leading real eigenvalues: the largest real eigenvalue with a "delocalised" corresponding eigenvector. We investigate a core-periphery network model and determine, both theoretically and experimentally, a regime of parameters for which our approach closely approximates the threshold, while the estimate derived using the leading eigenvalue does not. We further present experimental results on large scale real-world networks that showcase the usefulness of our approach.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_17774
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Percolation and localisation: Sub-leading eigenvalues of the nonbacktracking matrix
Martin, James
Rogers, Tim
Zanetti, Luca
Physics and Society
Social and Information Networks
60K35 (Primary) 05C50, 05C82 (Secondary)
The spectrum of the nonbacktracking matrix associated to a network is known to contain fundamental information regarding percolation properties of the network. Indeed, the inverse of its leading eigenvalue is often used as an estimate for the percolation threshold. However, for many networks with nonbacktracking centrality localised on a few nodes, such as networks with a core-periphery structure, this spectral approach badly underestimates the threshold. In this work, we study networks that exhibit this localisation effect by looking beyond the leading eigenvalue and searching deeper into the spectrum of the nonbacktracking matrix. We identify that, when localisation is present, the threshold often more closely aligns with the inverse of one of the sub-leading real eigenvalues: the largest real eigenvalue with a "delocalised" corresponding eigenvector. We investigate a core-periphery network model and determine, both theoretically and experimentally, a regime of parameters for which our approach closely approximates the threshold, while the estimate derived using the leading eigenvalue does not. We further present experimental results on large scale real-world networks that showcase the usefulness of our approach.
title Percolation and localisation: Sub-leading eigenvalues of the nonbacktracking matrix
topic Physics and Society
Social and Information Networks
60K35 (Primary) 05C50, 05C82 (Secondary)
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.17774