Analysis of contagion maps on a class of networks that are spatially embedded in a torus (1812.09806v3)

Abstract: A spreading process on a network is influenced by the network's underlying spatial structure, and it is insightful to study the extent to which a spreading process follows such structure. We consider a threshold contagion model on a network whose nodes are embedded in a manifold and which has both geometric edges', which respect the geometry of the underlying manifold, andnongeometric edges' that are not constrained by that geometry. Building on ideas from Taylor et al. \cite{Taylor2015}, we examine when a contagion propagates as a wave along a network whose nodes are embedded in a torus and when it jumps via long nongeometric edges to remote areas of the network. We build a contagion map' for a contagion spreading on such anoisy geometric network' to produce a point cloud; and we study the dimensionality, geometry, and topology of this point cloud to examine qualitative properties of this spreading process. We identify a region in parameter space in which the contagion propagates predominantly via wavefront propagation. We consider different probability distributions for constructing nongeometric edges -- reflecting different decay rates with respect to the distance between nodes in the underlying manifold -- and examine the effect of such choices on the qualitative properties of the spreading dynamics. Our work generalizes the analysis in Taylor et al. and consolidates contagion maps both as a tool for investigating spreading behavior on spatial networks and as a technique for manifold learning.