Robustness of network coherence in asymmetric unicyclic graphs

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a family of unicyclic graphs to study robustness of network coherence quantified by the Laplacian spectrum, which measures the extent of consensus under the noise. We adjust the network parameters to change the structural asymmetries with an aim of studying their effects on the coherence. Using the graph’s structures and matrix theories, we obtain closed-form solutions of the network coherence regarding network parameters and network size. We further show that the coherence of the asymmetric graph is higher than the corresponding symmetric graph and also compare the consensus behaviors for the graphs with different asymmetric structures. It displays that the coherence of the unicyclic graph with one hub is better than the graph with two hubs. Finally, we investigate the effect of degree of hub nodes on the coherence and find that bigger difference of degrees leads to better coherence.