Topological measures in weighted hypergraphs

Higher-order interactions introduce an additional structural dimension to complex networks, requiring consistent generalizations of classical topological measures.

In hypergraphs, the definition of distance between nodes is not unique: beyond the conventional measure derived from clique projection, an alternative formulation that explicitly incorporates the sizes of hyperedges, those of their intersection and their weights has been recently proposed.

Here, we generalize three distance-based topological measures, namely closeness centrality, betweenness centrality and node eccentricity, using this new hypergraph distance.

Trough tractable illustrative examples, we demonstrate that the differences between results obtained with the two distances are systematic and arise from structurally meaningful features of the higher-order networks.

Also, analyzing a series of real-world datasets, we show that hypergraphs can be divided into three distinct classes, corresponding to the possible dominance of specific orders of interaction over their general metric structure.

This provides practical guidance on the possibility of limiting the analysis to only some specific interaction orders, reducing its complexity while maintaining the full information of the system.