Spectra and eigenvectors of scale-free networks

Abstract

We study the spectra and eigenvectors of the adjacency matrices of scale-free networks when bidirectional interaction is allowed, so that the adjacency matrix is real and symmetric. The spectral density shows an exponential decay around the center, followed by power-law long tails at both spectrum edges. The largest eigenvalue ${\lambda }_1$ depends on system size N as ${\lambda }_1\sim N^{1/4}$ for large N, and the corresponding eigenfunction is strongly localized at the hub, the vertex with largest degree. The component of the normalized eigenfunction at the hub is of order unity. We also find that the mass gap scales as $N^{-0.68}.$