Dimension reduction in higher-order contagious phenomena

Abstract

We investigate epidemic spreading in a deterministic susceptible-infected-susceptible model on uncorrelated heterogeneous networks with higher-order interactions. We provide a recipe for the construction of one-dimensional reduced model (resilience function) of the N-dimensional susceptible-infected-susceptible dynamics in the presence of higher-order interactions. Utilizing this reduction process, we are able to capture the microscopic and macroscopic behavior of infectious networks. We find that the microscopic state of nodes (fraction of stable healthy individual of each node) inversely scales with their degree, and it becomes diminished due to the presence of higher-order interactions. In this case, we analytically obtain that the macroscopic state of the system (fraction of infectious or healthy population) undergoes abrupt transition. Additionally, we quantify the network’s resilience, i.e., how the topological changes affect the stable infected population. Finally, we provide an alternative framework of dimension reduction based on the spectral analysis of the network, which can identify the critical onset of the disease in the presence or absence of higher-order interactions. Both reduction methods can be extended for a large class of dynamical models.