Explosive percolation on the Bethe lattice is ordinary

Abstract

The Achlioptas process, which suppresses the aggregation of large-sized clusters, can exhibit an explosive percolation (EP) where the order parameter emerges abruptly yet continuously in the thermodynamic limit. It is known that EP is accompanied by an abnormally small critical exponent of the order parameter. In this paper, we report that a novel type of EP occurs on a Bethe lattice, where the critical exponent of the order parameter is the same as in ordinary bond percolation based on numerical analysis. This is likely due to the property of a finite Bethe lattice that the number of sites on the surface with only one neighbor is extensive to the system size. To overcome this finite size effect, we consider an approximate size of the cluster that each site on the surface along its branch belongs to, and accordingly approximate the sizes of an extensive number of clusters during simulation. As a result, the Achlioptas process becomes ineffective and the order parameter behaves like that of ordinary percolation at the threshold. We support this result by measuring other critical exponents as well.