Critical properties of a vector-mediated epidemic process

Abstract

We study the critical behavior of an epidemic propagation model with interacting static individuals and diffusive vectors. The model presents a non-equilibrium phase transition from an absorbing vacuum state to an epidemic state at a critical vector density which depends on the recovery rates of infected individuals and vectors. The simulation was performed in a linear chain of the proposed model and the finite time scale hypothesis was explored to estimate the vector critical density and dynamic critical exponents. Our results show that the absorbing-state phase transition belongs to the universality class of the symmetric diffusive epidemic process irrespective to the relative values of the recovery rates. On the other hand, the critical vector density shows a much stronger dependence on the recovery rate of vectors than on the corresponding recovery rate of individuals.