Structure profile of complex networks by a model of precipitation

The organizational structure of a network is investigated with a simulated precipitation model which does not make use of prior knowledge about the community structure of the network. The result is presented as a structure profile through which various definitions of communities can be applied for specific applications. The simulated precipitation model performs the grouping of nodes so that nodes belonging to the same “community” automatically aggregate, thereby revealing regions of the adjacency matrix with denser interconnections. The process is analogous to massive particles precipitating towards the lower potential layer. Without loss of the infrastructure information, a community structure profile of a network can be obtained as the ground state of the Hamiltonian. The method is also applicable to directed and weighted networks