title: Two universal physical principles shape the power-law statistics of real-world networks.
abstract: The study of complex networks has pursued an understanding of macroscopic behaviour by focusing on power-laws in microscopic observables. Here, we uncover two universal fundamental physical principles that are at the basis of complex network generation. These principles together predict the generic emergence of deviations from ideal power laws, which were previously discussed away by reference to the thermodynamic limit. Our approach proposes a paradigm shift in the physics of complex networks, toward the use of power-law deviations to infer meso-scale structure from macroscopic observations.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroinformatics and Institute of Computational Science, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lorimer
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroinformatics and Institute of Computational Science, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Florian
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Gomez
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroinformatics and Institute of Computational Science, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Ruedi
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Stoop