2004-13: Pair Approximation of the stochastic susceptible-infected-recovered-susceptible epidemic model on the hypercubic lattice

DIMACS TR: 2004-13

Pair Approximation of the stochastic susceptible-infected-recovered-susceptible epidemic model on the hypercubic lattice

Authors: Jaewook Joo and Joel L. Lebowitz

ABSTRACT We investigate the time-evolution and steady states of the stochastic susceptible-infected-recovered-susceptible~(SIRS) epidemic model on one- and two- dimensional lattices. We compare the behavior of this system, obtained from computer simulations, with those obtained from the mean-field approximation~(MFA) and pair-approximation~(PA). The former~(latter) approximates higher order momen ts in terms of first~(second) order ones. We find that the PA gives consistently better results than the MFA. In one dimension the improvement is even qualitative.

Paper Available at: ftp://dimacs.rutgers.edu/pub/dimacs/TechnicalReports/TechReports/2004/2004-13.ps.gz

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