Global Clustering Coefficient in Scale-Free Weighted and Unweighted Networks

Abstract In this article, we present a detailed analysis of the global clustering coefficient in scale-free graphs. Many observed real-world networks of diverse nature have a power-law degree distribution. Moreover, the observed degree distribution usually has an infinite variance. Therefore, we are especially interested in such degree distributions. In addition, we analyze the clustering coefficient for both weighted and unweighted graphs. There are two well-known definitions of the clustering coefficient of a graph: the global and the average local clustering coefficients. There are several models proposed in the literature for which the average local clustering coefficient tends to a positive constant as a graph grows. However, there are no models of scale-free networks with an infinite variance of the degree distribution and with an asymptotically constant global clustering coefficient. Models with constant global clustering and finite variance were also proposed. Therefore, in this work we focus only on the most interesting case: we analyze the global clustering coefficient for graphs with an infinite variance of the degree distribution. For unweighted graphs, we prove that the global clustering coefficient tends to zero with high probability and we also estimate the largest possible clustering coefficient for such graphs. On the contrary, for weighted graphs, the constant global clustering coefficient can be obtained even for the case of an infinite variance of the degree distribution.