Explosive Percolation with Multiple Giant Components

Abstract

We generalize the random graph evolution process of Bohman, Frieze, and Wormald [T. Bohman, A. Frieze, and N. C. Wormald, Random Struct. Algorithms, 25, 432 (2004)]. Potential edges, sampled uniformly at random from the complete graph, are considered one at a time and either added to the graph or rejected provided that the fraction of accepted edges is never smaller than a decreasing function asymptotically approaching the value α=1/2. We show that multiple giant components appear simultaneously in a strongly discontinuous percolation transition and remain distinct. Furthermore, tuning the value of α determines the number of such components with smaller α leading to an increasingly delayed and more explosive transition. The location of the critical point and strongly discontinuous nature are not affected if only edges which span components are sampled.