Dresden 2003 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Downloads | Help

AKSOE: Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme

AKSOE 3: Postersitzung

AKSOE 3.12: Poster

Monday, March 24, 2003, 15:45–17:15, P1

Scale-Free Topology of E-Mail Networks — •Stefan Bornholdt² and Holger Ebel¹ — ¹Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Kiel, 24098 Kiel, Germany — ²IZBI, Universität Leipzig, Kreuzstr. 7b, 04103 Leipzig, Germany

E-mail networks are recorded and analyzed for the first time, mapping the communication structure of a large set of individual users [1]. The nodes of the e-mail network are given by e-mail addresses which are conncected if a message has been exchanged between them. Pronounced small-world behavior (i.e., high clustering and a small network diameter) are observed as well as a scale-free distribution of the degree (i.e., a node’s number of next neighbors). The experimental results are compared to recent models [2,3], and it is discussed how the network’s topology facilitates spreading and persistence of e-mail viruses.

[1] H. Ebel, L.-I. Mielsch, and S. Bornholdt, Phys. Rev. E 66, 035103(R) (2002).

[2] S. Bornholdt and H. Ebel, Phys. Rev. E 64, 035104(R) (2001).

[3] J. Davidsen, H. Ebel, and S. Bornholdt, Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 128701 (2002).