Minimum spanning trees of weighted scale-free networks

Abstract

A complete characterization of real networks requires us to understand the consequences of the uneven interaction strengths between a system's components. Here we use minimum spanning trees (MSTs) to explore the effect of correlations between link weights and network topology on scale-free networks. Solely by changing the nature of the correlations between weights and network topology, the structure of the MSTs can change from scale-free to exponential. Additionally, for some choices of weight correlations, the efficiency of the MSTs increases with increasing network size, a result with potential implications for the design and scalability of communication networks.