We study the average time it takes to find a desired node in the Watts-Strogatz family of networks. We consider the case when the look-up time can be neglected and when it is important, where the look-up time is the time needed to choose one among all the neighboring nodes of a node at each step in the search. We show that in both cases, the search time is minimum in the small-world regime, when an appropriate distance between the nodes is defined. Through an analytical model, we show that the search time scales as $N^{1/D(D+1\mathrm{})\mathrm{}}$ for small-world networks, where N is the number of nodes and D is the dimension of the underlying lattice. This model is shown to be in agreement with numerical simulations.

• Received 19 September 2002

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.68.036106