Modelling transition phenomena of scientific coauthorship networks

In a range of scientific coauthorship networks, transitions emerge in degree distribution, in the correlation between degree and local clustering coefficient, etc. The existence of those transitions could be regarded because of the diversity in collaboration behaviors of scientific fields. A growing geometric hypergraph built on a cluster of concentric circles is proposed to model two specific collaboration behaviors, namely the behaviors of research team leaders and those of the other team members. The model successfully predicts the transitions, as well as many common features of coauthorship networks. Particularly, it realizes a process of deriving the complex “scale†free†property from the simple “yes/no†decisions. Moreover, it provides a reasonable explanation for the emergence of transitions with the difference of collaboration behaviors between leaders and other members. The difference emerges in the evolution of research teams, which synthetically addresses several specific factors of generating collaborations, namely the communications between research teams, academic impacts and homophily of authors.