Effects of local population structure in a reaction-diffusion model of a contact process on metapopulation networks.
We investigate the effects of local population structure in reaction-diffusion processes representing a contact process (CP) on metapopulations represented as complex networks. Considering a model in which the nodes of a large scale network represent local populations defined in terms of a homogeneous graph, we show by means of extensive numerical simulations that the critical properties of the reaction-diffusion system are independent of the local population structure, even when this one is given by a ordered linear chain. This independence is confirmed by the perfect matching between numerical critical exponents and the results from a heterogeneous mean-field theory suited, in principle, to describe situations of local homogeneous mixing. The analysis of several variations of the reaction-diffusion process allows us to conclude the independence from population structure of the critical properties of CP-like models on metapopulations, and thus of the universality of the reaction-diffusion description of this kind of models.
Departamento de Física, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, 36571-000, Viçosa-MG, Brazil.
Angélica S
AS
Mata
Silvio C
SC
Ferreira
Romualdo
R
Pastor-Satorras