Shortest-path percolation on scale-free networks (2509.09142v1)

Abstract: The shortest-path percolation (SPP) model aims at describing the consumption, and eventual exhaustion, of a network's resources. Starting from a graph containing a macroscopic connected component, random pairs of nodes are sequentially selected, and, if the length of the shortest path connecting the node pairs is smaller than a tunable budget parameter, then all edges along such a path are removed from the network. As edges are progressively removed, the network eventually breaks into multiple microscopic components, undergoing a percolation-like transition. It is known that SPP transition on Erd\H{o}s-R\'enyi (ER) graphs belongs to same universality class as of the ordinary bond percolation if the budget parameter is finite; for unbounded budget instead, the SPP transition becomes more abrupt than the ordinary percolation transition. By means of large-scale numerical simulations and finite-size scaling analysis, here we study the SPP transition on random scale-free networks (SFNs) characterized by power-law degree distributions. We find, in contrast with standard percolation, that the transition is identical to the one observed on ER graphs, denoting independence from the degree exponent. Still, we distinguish finite- and infinite-budget SPP universality classes. Our findings follow from the fact that the SPP process drastically homogenizes the heterogeneous structure of SFNs before the SPP transition takes place.