title: Attack vulnerability of scale-free networks due to cascading breakdown.
abstract: The possibility that a complex network can be brought down by attack on a single or a very few nodes through the process of cascading failures is of significant concern. Here we investigate a recent model for cascading failures in complex networks and uncover a phase-transition phenomenon in terms of the key parameter characterizing the node capacity. For parameter value below the phase-transition point, cascading failures can cause the network to disintegrate almost entirely. We obtain a theoretical estimate for the phase-transition point and provide numerical support.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287, USA.
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Kwangho
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Ying-Cheng
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Lai