title: Optimal contact process on complex networks.
abstract: Contact processes on complex networks are a recent subject of study in nonequilibrium statistical physics and they are also important to applied fields such as epidemiology and computer and communication networks. A basic issue concerns finding an optimal strategy for spreading. We provide a universal strategy that, when a basic quantity in the contact process dynamics, the contact probability determined by a generic function of its degree W(k) , is chosen to be inversely proportional to the node degree, i.e., W(k) approximately k;{-1} , spreading can be maximized. Computation results on both model and real-world networks verify our theoretical prediction. Our result suggests the determining role played by small-degree nodes in optimizing spreading, in contrast to the intuition that hub nodes are important for spreading dynamics on complex networks.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287, USA.
authors.forename: Rui
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Yan-Bo
authors.initials: YB
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.forename: Ying-Cheng
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.forename: Bing-Hong
authors.initials: BH
authors.lastname: Wang