Promoting information diffusion through interlayer recovery processes in multiplex networks

For information diffusion in multiplex networks, the effect of interlayer contagion on spreading dynamics has been explored in different settings. Nevertheless, the impact of interlayer recovery processes, i.e., the transition of nodes to stiflers in all layers after they become stiflers in any layer, still remains unclear. In this paper, we propose a modified ignorant-spreader-stifler model of rumor spreading equipped with an interlayer recovery mechanism. We find that the information diffusion can be effectively promoted for a range of interlayer recovery rates. By combining the mean-field approximation and the Markov chain approach, we derive the evolution equations of the diffusion process in two-layer homogeneous multiplex networks. The optimal interlayer recovery rate that achieves the maximal enhancement can be calculated by solving the equations numerically. In addition, we find that the promoting effect on a certain layer can be strengthened if information spreads more extensively within the counterpart layer. When applying the model to two-layer scale-free multiplex networks, with or without degree correlation, similar promoting effect is also observed in simulations. Our work indicates that the interlayer recovery process is beneficial to information diffusion in multiplex networks, which may have implications for designing efficient spreading strategies.