Escaping the avalanche collapse in self-similar multiplexes

We deduce and discuss the implications of self-similarity for the robustness to failure of multiplexes, depending on interlayer degree correlations. First, we define self-similarity of multiplexes and we illustrate the concept in practice using the configuration model ensemble. Circumscribing robustness to survival of the mutually percolated state, we find a new explanation based on self-similarity both for the observed fragility of interconnected systems of networks and for their robustness to failure when interlayer degree correlations are present. Extending the self-similarity arguments, we show that interlayer degree correlations can change completely the global connectivity properties of self-similar multiplexes, so that they can even recover a zero percolation threshold and a continuous transition in the thermodynamic limit, qualitatively exhibiting thus the ordinary percolation properties of noninteracting networks. We confirm these results with numerical simulations.