Social contagions on multiplex networks with heterogeneous population

In this paper, we study the effects of heterogeneous population on the dynamics of social contagions on multiplex networks. We assume a fraction of [Formula presented] nodes with a higher adoption threshold [Formula presented], and the remaining fraction of [Formula presented] nodes with adoption threshold 1. A social contagion model is proposed to describe the social contagions, in which a susceptible node adopting the contagion only when its received accumulated information is larger than the adoption threshold in either subnetwork. With an edge-based compartmental approach and extensive numerical simulations, we find that the system exhibits a continuous phase transition for small values of [Formula presented], while shows a hybrid phase transition for relatively large values of [Formula presented] and [Formula presented]. For homogeneous multiplex networks the hybrid phase transition occurs, while there is only a continuous phase transition for heterogeneous multiplex networks. Our theoretical predictions agree well with numerical simulations.