Detecting different topologies immanent in scale-free networks with the same degree distribution

Significance This paper highlights that not all scale-free (SF) networks arise through a Barabási−Albert (BA) preferential attachment process. Although evident from the literature, this fact is often overlooked by many researchers. For this purpose, it is demonstrated, with simulations, that established network measures cannot distinguish between BA networks and other SF networks (random-like and lattice-like) with the same degree distribution....