https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2017-70021-3
Regular Article
How important are hubs for the generation of extreme events in networks of excitable units?
1 Department of Epileptology, University of Bonn, Sigmund-Freud-Straße 25, 53105 Bonn, Germany
2 Helmholtz-Institute for Radiation and Nuclear Physics, University of Bonn, Nussallee 14–16, 53115 Bonn, Germany
3 Interdisciplinary Center for Complex Systems, University of Bonn, Brühler Straße 7, 53175 Bonn, Germany
a e-mail: thorsten.rings@uni-bonn.de
b e-mail: gansmann@uni-bonn.de
c e-mail: klaus.lehnertz@ukbonn.de
Received: 26 January 2017
Revised: 6 March 2017
Published online: 21 June 2017
We study scale-free networks of FitzHugh-Nagumo units whose collective dynamics exhibits rare and recurrent events of high amplitude (extreme events). We investigate which units play a crucial role in the generation of these events. Unexpectedly, we observe that extreme events originate from low-degree units, while high-degree units (hubs) appear to be crucial for the event to engulf the whole network.
© EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag, 2017
