A portrait of the collaboration network in quantum information

Abstract

From its inception at the beginning of the eighties, with milestone results and ideas such as quantum simulation, the no-cloning theorem, and quantum computers, quantum information has established itself over the next decades, being nowadays a fast-developing field at the interface between fundamental science and a variety of promising technologies. In this work we aim to offer a portrait of this dynamic field, analyzing the statistical properties of the network of collaborations among its researchers. Using the quant-ph section from the arXiv as our database, we draw several conclusions on its properties. In particular, we show that the quantum information network of collaborations displays the small-world property, is very aggregated and assortative, being also in line with Newman's findings as for the presence of hubs and the Lotka's law regarding the average number of publications per author.