Hopf bifurcation and normal form in a delayed oncolytic model

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the mathematical analysis of a mathematical model describing the virotherapy treatment of a cancer with logistic growth and the effect of viral cycle presented by a time delay. The cancer population size is divided into uninfected and infected compartments. Depending on time delay, we prove the positivity and boundedness and the stability of equilibria. We give conditions on which the viral cycle leads to “Jeff’s phenomenon” observed in laboratory and causes oscillations in cancer size via Hopf bifurcation theory. We establish an algorithm that determines the bifurcation elements via center manifold and normal form theories. We give conditions which lead to a supercritical or subcritical bifurcation. We end with numerical simulations illustrating our theoretical results.