title: Path finding strategies in scale-free networks.
abstract: We numerically investigate the scale-free network model of Barabási and Albert [A. L. Barabási and R. Albert, Science 286, 509 (1999)] through the use of various path finding strategies. In real networks, global network information is not accessible to each vertex, and the actual path connecting two vertices can sometimes be much longer than the shortest one. A generalized diameter depending on the actual path finding strategy is introduced, and a simple strategy, which utilizes only local information on the connectivity, is suggested and shown to yield small-world behavior: the diameter D of the network increases logarithmically with the network size N, the same as is found with global strategy. If paths are sought at random, D is equivalent to N(0.5) is found.
authors.affiliation: Department of Theoretical Physics, Umeå University, 901 87 Umeå, Sweden.
authors.forename: Beom Jun
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Chang No
authors.initials: CN
authors.lastname: Yoon
authors.forename: Seung Kee
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Han
authors.forename: Hawoong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jeong