Role of Articulation Point in Complex Networks

Abstract

For a dynamical controllable system we can drive from its initial state to desired state via imposing appropriate and independent external control signal on its driver nodes. Precious work has figured out that to a given network, the minimum number of driver node is fixed and determined mainly by the network's degree distribution. Articulation point in a network is the node whose removal will disconnect whole network. Thus, articulation point plays a vital role in network controlling. Moreover, the fraction of articulation point can be the evaluation standard of connectivity and robustness of many real-world network. Here we apply a theoretical framework to analysis the effect of articulation point on network controllability. Our result potentially converges to an optimized research strategy in network controllability, and enriches the measures to understand complex networks.