Paper detail

On the evolution of random graphs on spaces of negative curvature

In this work, we study a family of random geometric graphs on hyperbolic spaces. In this setting, N points are chosen randomly on a hyperbolic space and any two of them are joined by an edge with probability that depends on their hyperbolic distance, independently of every other pair. In particular, when the positions of the points have been fixed, the distribution over the set of graphs on these points is the Boltzmann distribution, where the Hamiltonian is given by the sum of weighted indicator functions for each pair of points, with the weight being proportional to a real parameter β>0 (interpreted as the inverse temperature) as well as to the hyperbolic distance between the corresponding points. This class of random graphs was introduced by Krioukov et al. We provide a rigorous analysis of aspects of this model and its dependence on the parameter β, verifying some of their observations. We show that a phase transition occurs around β=1. More specifically, we show that when β> 1 the degree of a typical vertex is bounded in probability (in fact it follows a distribution which for large values exhibits a power-law tail whose exponent depends only on the curvature of the space), whereas for β<1 the degree is a random variable whose expected value grows polynomially in N. When β= 1, we establish logarithmic growth. For the case β> 1, we establish a connection with a class of inhomogeneous random graphs known as the Chung-Lu model. Assume that we use the Poincaré disc representation of a hyperbolic space. If we condition on the distance of each one of the points from the origin, then the probability that two given points are adjacent is expressed through the kernel of this inhomogeneous random graph.