Complex networks articles from across Nature Portfolio

Quantum communication networks are expected to exceed the performance of communications systems based on classical physics in terms of security and communication efficiency and contribute towards the formation of quantum internet. Here, the authors present a model of complex quantum communication networks based on quantum Ising spins where entangled clusters serve as efficient communication channels.

Human travel is one of the factors contributing to epidemic spreading. By studying the impact of non-Markovian travel on epidemic dynamics, the authors find that the epidemic threshold can be maximized by a proper travel level and exhibits a two-threshold phenomenon, which provides insight into understanding and controlling real epidemics.

Social networks often show sudden bursts of activity. By analysing meme stocks, the authors provide a proof-of concept for a generic endogenous mechanism that explains the emergence of financial bubbles. The theory correlates their size with the structure of social networks, emphasizing how influential individuals tend to impact others in a top-down manner.

A paper in Nature Communications shows that a hyperbolic map can still be useful for navigating a real-world network, even if the information about the network is incomplete.

Twenty-five years ago, Duncan Watts and Steven Strogatz published ‘Collective dynamics of ‘small-world’ networks’, a paper that helped kickstart the modern era of network science.

A paper in Physical Review E shows that in several real-world networks, the number of cliques grows faster than the number of links, and the number of big cliques grows even faster than the number of small cliques.

A paper in Science Advances puts forward a framework for quantifying the level of homophily in group interactions, and shows that simple-seeming definitions of group homophily are constrained by combinatorics in ways that are not immediately obvious.

A paper in Communications Physics shows that effective interventions to increase the visibility of minorities in networks should consider both increasing the size of the minority and changing how connections are made.

A paper in Physical Review X puts forward a model that yields networks with a maximum distance between individuals of exactly six.