Fisica statistica

Cascading failures in networks due to overload and interdependence

by Sergey Buldyrev (Yeshiva University New York)

Europe/Rome
Aula 7 (Dipartimento di Fisica - Ed.- E. Fermi)

Aula 7

Dipartimento di Fisica - Ed.- E. Fermi

Description
Modern infrastructures such as power grid, internet, gas and water pipelines as well as social, economic and financial systems can be modeled by isolated or interdependent networks, in which the elements can fail due to overload, interdependency, or both. Often a failure of a few elements can cause a cascade of failures, which results in the collapse of a large fraction of the system, for example a huge blackout, or a financial crisis. Many different systems show a remarkable universality in the phenomenology of cascading failures, which in many cases can be described as a first order phase transition with two possible states: almost intact and almost completely failed, suggesting that many