On the structural properties of small-world networks with finite range of shortcut links

Abstract

We explore a new variant of Small-World Networks (SWNs), in which an additional parameter ($r$) sets the length scale over which shortcuts are uniformly distributed. When $r=0$ we have an ordered network, whereas $r=1$ corresponds to the original SWN model. These short-range SWNs have a similar degree distribution and scaling properties as the original SWN model. We observe the small-world phenomenon for $r \ll 1$ indicating that global shortcuts are not necessary for the small-world effect. For short-range SWNs, the average path length changes nonmonotonically with system size, whereas for the original SWN model it increases monotonically. We propose an expression for the average path length for short-range SWNs based on numerical simulations and analytical approximations.