Effect of Strong Opinions on the Dynamics of the Majority-Vote Model

We study how the presence of individuals with strong opinions affects a square lattice majority-vote model with noise. In a square lattice network we perform Monte-Carlo simulations and replace regular actors σ with strong actors μ in a random distribution. We find that the value of the critical noise parameter q _c is a decreasing function of the concentration r of strong actors in the social interaction network. We calculate the critical exponents β/ν, γ/ν, and 1/ν and find that the presence of strong actors does not change the Ising universality class of the isotropic majority-vote model.