Deletion of oldest edges in a preferential attachment graph

Abstract

We consider a variation on the Barab\'asi-Albert random graph process with fixed parameters $m\in \mathbb{N}$ and $1/2 < p < 1$. With probability $p$ a vertex is added along with $m$ edges, randomly chosen proportional to vertex degrees. With probability $1 - p$, the oldest vertex still holding its original $m$ edges loses those edges. It is shown that the degree of any vertex either is zero or follows a geometric distribution. If $p$ is above a certain threshold, this leads to a power law for the degree sequence, while a smaller $p$ gives exponential tails. It is also shown that the graph contains a unique giant component whp if and only if $m\geq 2$.