Barabasi-Albert Algorithm

Described in A.-L. Barabasi and R. Albert, Emergence of scaling in random networks. Science 286, 509–512 (1999).

This algorithm describes an alternate model for generating random graphs. In contrast to the Erdos-Renyi model, the B-A model exhibits growth and preferential attachment, with the result that there is no characteristic degree, or scale in the resulting graph. Scale-free graphs, as they are now called, have been extensively studied since their discovery, and are much more similar to many real-world graphs than graphs generated with the E-R algorithm.