A preferential attachment model with random initial degrees

In this paper, a random graph process ${G(t)}_{t\ge 1}$ is studied and its degree sequence is analyzed. Let $(W_t{)}_{t\ge 1}$ be an i.i.d. sequence. The graph process is defined so that, at each integer time $t$, a new vertex, with $W_t$ edges attached to it, is added to the graph. The new edges added at time t are then preferentially connected to older vertices, i.e., conditionally on $G(t-1)$, the probability that a given edge is connected to vertex i is proportional to $d_i(t-1)+\delta$, where $d_i(t-1)$ is the degree of vertex $i$ at time $t-1$, independently of the other edges. The main result is that the asymptotical degree sequence for this process is a power law with exponent $\tau =\min \{{\tau }_W,{\tau }_P\}$, where ${\tau }_W$ is the power-law exponent of the initial degrees $(W_t{)}_{t\ge 1}$ and ${\tau }_P$ the exponent predicted by pure preferential attachment. This result extends previous work by Cooper and Frieze, which is surveyed.