Network Fidelity: A Metric to Quantify the Similarity and Realism of Complex Networks

The analysis of complex networks revolves around the common fundamental properties found in most natural and synthetic networks that surround us. Each such network is commonly described through a standard set of graph metrics, yet there is no unified and efficient method of quantitatively compare networks to each other. This paper introduces the network fidelity metric delta (δ) which is aimed at offering the possibility to compare networks to each other based on individual metric measurements. Depending on the nature of the comparison, it can offer insight on network model similarity or synthetic model realism compared to a real world network. We apply the metric in a social network modeling scenario and also compare it to another metric - the fractal dimension - highlighting the superior analytic power of our metric.