Spanning trees in a fractal scale-free lattice

Abstract

Spanning trees provide crucial insight into the origin of fractality in fractal scale-free networks. In this paper, we present the number of spanning trees in a particular fractal scale-free lattice (network). We first study analytically the topological characteristics of the lattice and show that it is simultaneously scale-free, highly clustered, "large-world," fractal, and disassortative. Any previous model does not have all the properties as the studied one. Then, by using the renormalization group technique we derive analytically the number of spanning trees in the network under consideration, based on which we also determine the entropy for the spanning trees of the network. These results shed light on understanding the structural characteristics of and dynamical processes on scale-free networks with fractality. Moreover, our method and process for employing the decimation technique to enumerate spanning trees are general and can be easily extended to other deterministic media with self-similarity.