Core-periphery Organization of Complex Networks

Networks may, or may not, be wired to have a core that is both itself densely connected and central in terms of graph distance. In this study we propose a coefficient to measure if the network has such a clear-cut core-periphery dichotomy. We measure this coefficient for a number of real-world and model networks and find that different classes of networks have their characteristic values. Among other things we conclude that geographically embedded transportation networks have a strong core-periphery structure. We proceed to study radial statistics of the core, i.e., properties of the neighborhoods of the core vertices for increasing n. We find that almost all networks have unexpectedly many edges within n neighborhoods at a certain distance from the core suggesting an effective radius for nontrivial network processes.