Identifying influential nodes in complex networks based on expansion factor

Identifying the top influential spreaders in a network has practical significance. In this paper, we propose a novel centrality to identify influential spreaders based on expansion factor. Nodes with high expansion factor centrality (EFC) have strong spreading capability. During the course of the work, an improved strategy is proposed to reduce the time complexity of EFC. We discuss the correlations between EFC and the other five classical indicators. Simulation results on the Susceptible-Infected-Removed (SIR) model manifest that EFC can identify influential nodes and find some critical influential nodes neglected by other indicators.