Loops, not groups: Long loops are responsible for discontinuous phase transitions in higher-order network contagions

NetSciX 2026 Conference Submission117 Authors

Keywords: complex contagion, percolation, hypergraphs, probability-generating functions, dynamics on networks, branching processes

TL;DR: using a percolation argument, for higher-order contagion, we find that there is a discontinuous phase transition in the size of the largest connected component only when we allow for long transmission loops in the dynamics.

Submission Number: 117