Opinion formation with zealots on temporal network (Q2025494)

This paper studies opinion formation process on the time-varying network on the basis of voter model. Two situations are considered including innovation eruption and election. In the innovation eruption case, theoretical analysis is performed based on the activity model and in the election case simulation results are presented. When zealots exist in the network, normal population with negative opinions will not die out since there are some individuals who are affected by zealots to hold negative opinions invariably. When the number of zealots is zero, the non-negative threshold \(R_0\) is derived by the moments of \(a\) as \(R_0=2\langle a\rangle/(\langle a\rangle+\sqrt{\langle a^2\rangle})\), where \(a\) is the active probability. Numerical results show that temporal network may lead to an amplification or a weakening of the effects of the zealots on the consensus formation dependent on the time interval of time-varying networks compared with the aggregated networks.