Maximal cliques in scale-free random graphs

Abstract We investigate the number of maximal cliques, that is, cliques that are not contained in any larger clique, in three network models: Erdős–Rényi random graphs, inhomogeneous random graphs (IRGs) (also called Chung–Lu graphs), and geometric inhomogeneous random graphs (GIRGs). For sparse and not-too-dense Erdős–Rényi graphs, we give linear and polynomial upper bounds on the number of maximal cliques. For the dense regime, we give super-polynomial and even exponential lower bounds. Although (G)IRGs are sparse, we give super-polynomial lower bounds for these models. This comes from the fact that these graphs have a power-law degree distribution, which leads to a dense subgraph in which we find many maximal cliques. These lower bounds seem to contradict previous empirical evidence that (G)IRGs have only few maximal cliques. We resolve this contradiction by providing experiments indicating that, even for large networks, the linear lower-order terms dominate, before the super-polynomial asymptotic behavior kicks in only for networks of extreme size.