Abstract
We show that not only preferential attachment but also preferential
depletion leads to scale-free networks. In our model there is neither
growth of new connections nor growth of new nodes. We start from a well
connected network and implement a probabilistic purely depletion
procedure. The resulting degree distribution exponent is typically less
than two (5/3) as opposed to the case of the growth models studied
before where the exponents are larger. We investigate the most important
properties characterizing these networks, as the cluster size
distribution, the average shortest path and the clustering coefficient.
Copyright (C) EPLA, 2011
