Relating spatial constraints to temporal-network properties in face-to-face interactions

Determine the relationship between spatial constraints in physical space and the resulting properties of temporal networks constructed from face-to-face proximity interactions among moving agents, in order to clarify how spatial motion and geometry shape temporal-contact patterns.

Background

The paper studies temporal contact networks generated by simple two-dimensional particle dynamics (Random Walk, Active Brownian Particles, Vicsek model) to probe which temporal properties of empirical face-to-face interaction networks can be reproduced by minimal spatial models.

Despite prior modeling efforts, including dynamic proximity models and an influential 2D random-walk-based framework with attractiveness, the precise connection between the spatial constraints underlying motion and the temporal-network properties observed in face-to-face data has not been fully articulated. This work highlights that inter-contact duration distributions can be explained via first-return processes, but it explicitly notes that the broader relationship between spatial constraints and temporal-network properties remains unclear.