Eur. Phys. J. B 51, 543-547 (2006)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2006-00249-y

Dynamics of congestion transition triggered by multiple walkers on complex networks

Soft Matter Lab, Institute of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics and Department of Physics, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, P.R. China

Corresponding author: ^a cxwu@xmu.edu.cn

Received: 20 January 2006
Revised: 27 April 2006
Published online: 22 June 2006

Abstract

The congestion transition triggered by multiple walkers walking along the shortest path on complex networks is numerically investigated. These networks are composed of nodes that have a finite capacity in analogy to the buffer memory of a computer. It is found that a transition from free-flow phase to congestion phase occurs at a critical walker density f_c, which varies for complex networks with different topological structures. The dynamic pictures of congestion for networks with different topological structures show that congestion on scale-free networks is a percolation process of congestion clusters, while the dynamics of congestion transition on non-scale-free networks is mainly a process of nucleation.