Core-periphery organization of complex networks

Networks may, or may not, be wired to have a core that is both itself densely connected and central in terms of graph distance. In this study we propose a coefficient to measure if the network has such a clear-cut core-periphery dichotomy. We measure this coefficient for a number of real-world and model networks and find that different classes of networks have their characteristic values. Among other things we conclude that geographically embedded transportation networks have a strong core-periphery structure. We proceed to study radial statistics of the core, i.e., properties of the n neighborhoods of the core vertices for increasing n. We find that almost all networks have unexpectedly many edges within n neighborhoods at a certain distance from the core suggesting an effective radius for nontrivial network processes.