Communicability graph and community structures in complex networks

• Published in: Applied mathematics and computation 2009-08, Vol.214 (2), p.500-511
• Main Authors: Estrada, Ernesto, Hatano, Naomichi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: All-cliques problem; Communicability; Complex networks; Exact sciences and technology; Graph spectrum; Mathematical analysis; Mathematics; Network communities; Numerical analysis; Numerical analysis. Scientific computation; Operator theory; Sciences and techniques of general use
• ISSN: 0096-3003; 1873-5649
• DOI: 10.1016/j.amc.2009.04.024

We use the concept of the network communicability [E. Estrada, N. Hatano, Communicability in complex networks, Phys. Rev. E 77 (2008) 036111] to define communities in a complex network. The communities are defined as the cliques of a “communicability graph”, which has the same set of nodes as the complex network and links determined by the communicability function. Then, the problem of finding the network communities is transformed to an all-clique problem of the communicability graph. We discuss the efficiency of this algorithm of community detection. In addition, we extend here the concept of the communicability to account for the strength of the interactions between the nodes by using the concept of inverse temperature of the network. Finally, we develop an algorithm to manage the different degrees of overlapping between the communities in a complex network. We then analyze the USA airport network, for which we successfully detect two big communities of the eastern airports and of the western/central airports as well as two bridging central communities. In striking contrast, a well-known algorithm groups all but two of the continental airports into one community.