Temporal connectivity of Random Geometric Graphs

Abstract: A temporal random geometric graph is a random geometric graph in which all edges are endowed with a uniformly random time-stamp, representing the time of interaction between vertices. In such graphs, paths with increasing time stamps indicate the propagation of information. We determine a threshold for the existence of monotone increasing paths between all pairs of vertices in temporal random geometric graphs. The results reveal that temporal connectivity appears at a significantly larger edge density than simple connectivity of the underlying random geometric graph. This is in contrast with Erd\H{o}s-R\'enyi random graphs in which the thresholds for temporal connectivity and simple connectivity are of the same order of magnitude. Our results hold for a family of "soft" random geometric graphs as well as the standard random geometric graph.