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On an epidemic model on finite graphs

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

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Authors

Benjamini, Itai 
Fontes, Luiz Renato 
Machado, Fabio Prates 

Abstract

We study a system of random walks, known as the frog model, starting from a profile of independent Poisson(λ) particles per site, with one additional active particle planted at some vertex o of a finite connected simple graph G=(V,E). Initially, only the particles occupying o are active. Active particles perform tN∪{} steps of the walk they picked before vanishing and activate all inactive particles they hit. This system is often taken as a model for the spread of an epidemic over a population. Let Rt be the set of vertices which are visited by the process, when active particles vanish after t steps. We study the susceptibility of the process on the underlying graph, defined as the random quantity S(G):=inf{t:Rt=V} (essentially, the shortest particles' lifetime required for the entire population to get infected). We consider the cases that the underlying graph is either a regular expander or a d-dimensional torus of side length n (for all d≥1) Td(n) and determine the asymptotic behavior of $\mathcal{S} $ up to a constant factor. In fact, throughout we allow the particle density λ to depend on n and for d≥2 we determine the asymptotic behavior of S(Td(n)) up to smaller order terms for a wide range of λ=λn.

Description

Keywords

math.PR, math.PR, 82C41, 60K35, 82B43, 60J10

Journal Title

The Annals of Applied Probability

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1050-5164

Volume Title

Publisher

Institute of Mathematical Statistics

Rights

All rights reserved
Sponsorship
EPSRC grant EP/L018896/1.