Diffusion-limited-aggregation on a directed small world network

Abstract

For real world systems, nonuniform medium is ubiquitous. Therefore, we investigate the diffusion-limited-aggregation process on a two dimensional directed small-world network instead of regular lattice. The network structure is established by rewiring connections on the two dimensional directed lattice. Those rewired edges are controlled by two parameters $θ$ and $m$, which characterize the spatial length and the density of the long-range connections, respectively. Simulations show that there exists a maximum value of the fractal dimension when $θ$ equals zero. Interestingly, we find that the symmetry of the aggregation pattern is broken when rewired connections are long enough, which may be an explanation for the formation of asymmetrical fractal in nature. Then, we perform multifractal analysis on the patterns further.