Opinion Dynamics Systems on Barabási–Albert Networks: Biswas–Chatterjee–Sen Model

Abstract

A discrete version of opinion dynamics systems, based on the Biswas–Chatterjee–Sen (BChS) model, has been studied on Barabási–Albert networks (BANs). In this model, depending on a pre-defined noise parameter, the mutual affinities can assign either positive or negative values. By employing extensive computer simulations with Monte Carlo algorithms, allied with finite-size scaling hypothesis, second-order phase transitions have been observed. The corresponding critical noise and the usual ratios of the critical exponents have been computed, in the thermodynamic limit, as a function of the average connectivity. The effective dimension of the system, defined through a hyper-scaling relation, is close to one, and it turns out to be connectivity-independent. The results also indicate that the discrete BChS model has a similar behavior on directed Barabási–Albert networks (DBANs), as well as on Erdös–Rènyi random graphs (ERRGs) and directed ERRGs random graphs (DERRGs). However, unlike the model on ERRGs and DERRGs, which has the same critical behavior for the average connectivity going to infinity, the model on BANs is in a different universality class to its DBANs counterpart in the whole range of the studied connectivities.

Keywords

• opinion dynamics systems
• Biswas–Chatterjee–Sen model
• finite-size-scaling hypothesis
• universality class
• second-order phase transitions