English

Generalized Diffusive Epidemic Process with Permanent Immunity in Two Dimensions

Statistical Mechanics 2024-07-16 v2 Physics and Society

Abstract

We introduce the generalized diffusive epidemic process, which is a metapopulation model for an epidemic outbreak where a non-sedentary population of walkers can jump along lattice edges with diffusion rates DSD_S or DID_I if they are susceptible or infected, respectively, and recovered individuals possess permanent immunity. Individuals can be contaminated with rate μc\mu_c if they share the same lattice node with an infected individual and recover with rate μr\mu_r, being removed from the dynamics. Therefore, the model does not have the conservation of the active particles composed of susceptible and infected individuals. The reaction-diffusion dynamics are separated into two stages: (i) Brownian diffusion, where the particles can jump to neighboring nodes, and (ii) contamination and recovery reactions. The dynamics are mapped into a growing process by activating lattice nodes with successful contaminations where activated nodes are interpreted as infection sources. In all simulations, the epidemic starts with one infected individual in a lattice filled with susceptibles. Our results indicate a phase transition in the dynamic percolation universality class controlled by the population size, irrespective of diffusion rates DSD_S and DID_I and a subexponential growth of the epidemics in the percolation threshold.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2407.08175,
  title  = {Generalized Diffusive Epidemic Process with Permanent Immunity in Two Dimensions},
  author = {V. R. Carvalho and T. F. A. Alves and G. A. Alves and D. S. M. Alencar and F. W. S. Lima and A. Macedo-Filho and R. S. Ferreira},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2407.08175},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

8 pages, 4 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-28T17:36:43.392Z