Self-organized emergence of navigability on small-world networks

Abstract

We study the origin of navigability in small-world (SW) networks and propose a general scheme for navigating SW networks. We find that navigability can naturally emerge from self-organization in the absence of prior knowledge about the underlying reference frames of networks. Through a process of information exchange and accumulation on networks, a hidden metric space for navigation on networks is constructed. Navigation based on distances between vertices in the hidden metric space can efficiently deliver messages on SW networks, in which long-range connections play an important role. Numerical simulations further demonstrate that a high cluster coefficient and a low diameter are both necessary for navigability. These interesting results provide profound insights into scalable routing on the Internet due to its distributed and localized requirements. © IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.