Evolution of Scale-Freeness in a Co-authorship Network

Many natural networks including social networks are scale-free, i.e. the distribution of node degrees in the network is heavy-tailed and follows the power law. In this work we analyze the scale-free properties of selected subnets of a complex co-authorship network induced by significant nodes (authors) and the evolution of these properties in time. The subnets induced by significant authors are sampled at different times and the power law parameters are estimated analytically. The study provides an empirical overview of the scale-freeness and evolution of power law parameters in a dynamic co-authorship network.