Heavy-tailed configuration models at criticality (Q2227459)

This paper deals with the configuration model, that is, the canonical model for generating a random multigraph with a prescribed degree sequence. The authors assume that the tail of the degree distribution of a uniformly chosen \(n\)-vertex random graph can be approximated by a regularly-varying function with exponent \(\tau-1\), where \(\tau\in (3,4)\). The main contributions in this paper are as follows: (i) the largest connected components of this configuration model are of order \(n^{(\tau-2)/(\tau-1)}L(n)^{-1}\), while the width of the scaling window is of order \(n^{(\tau-3)/(\tau-1)}L(n)^{-2}\) for some slowly-varying function \(L\); (ii) the re-scaled ordered component sizes converge in distribution to the ordered excursions of a thinned Lévy process that only depends on the asymptotics of the high-degree vertices; (iii) the scaling limits for the surplus edges are described by Poisson random variables with parameters being the areas under the excursions of the thinned Lévy process; (iv) the results hold conditioned on the graph being simple; (v) the scaling limits also hold for the graphs obtained by performing critical percolation on a supercritical graph and the percolation clusters can be coupled using the Harris coupling; this allows one to obtain a convergence of the evolution of the component sizes and surplus edges to a version of the augmented multiplicative coalescent process whose one-dimensional distribution is described by the excursions of a thinned Lévy process and a Poisson process with intensity proportional to the thinned Lévy process.