Multiplexity amplifies geometry in networks

Jasper van der Kolk, Dmitri Krioukov, Marián Boguñá, M. Ángeles Serrano
arXiv
arXiv:2505.17688
May 23, 2025
Many real-world network are multilayer, with nontrivial correlations across layers. Here we show that these correlations amplify geometry in networks. We focus on mutual clustering--a measure of the amount of triangles that are present in all layers among the same triplets of nodes--and find that this clustering is abnormally high in many real-world networks, even when clustering in each individual layer is weak. We explain this unexpected phenomenon using a simple multiplex network model with latent geometry: links that are most congruent with this geometry are the ones that persist across layers, amplifying the cross-layer triangle overlap. This result reveals a different dimension in which multilayer networks are radically distinct from their constituent layers.
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