https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2010-90977-6
Velocity of front propagation in the epidemic model A+B
2A
Institute of Physics, Sachivalaya Marg, 751005 Bhubaneswar, India
Corresponding author: a This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Received:
16
December
2009
Revised:
15
July
2010
Published online:
22
November
2010
Abstract
We study front propagation in the irreversible epidemic model
A+B
2A in one dimension with initially separated A and
B, which diffuse with rates DA and DB respectively and B
gets converted by neighbouring A with rate ϵ. We find
analytic estimates for the front velocity by writing truncated
master equation in the frame moving with the leading A particle.
The results obtained are in reasonable agreement with simulation
results and are amenable to systematic improvement. We observe a
crossover from the linear dependence of front velocity V on DA
for smaller values of DA which, for DA ≫ ϵ becomes
independent of DA. For DA = DB, macroscopic description for the
process is given by Fisher equation and one expects to get mean
field dependence (V ~
) in the reaction controlled
limit, i.e. DA
∞. However, the observed dependence
of V on DA in the limit DA
∞ rules out such
convergence to the naive mean field results.
Present address: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and BioCircuits Institute, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0340, USA.
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 2010

