Double transitions and hysteresis in heterogeneous contagion processes

Abstract

In many real-world contagion phenomena, the number of contacts to spreading entities for adoption varies for different individuals. Therefore, we study a model of contagion dynamics with heterogeneous adoption thresholds. We derive mean-field equations for the fraction of adopted nodes and obtain phase diagrams in terms of the transmission probability and fraction of nodes requiring multiple contacts for adoption. We find a double phase transition exhibiting a continuous transition and a subsequent discontinuous jump in the fraction of adopted nodes because of the heterogeneity in adoption thresholds. Additionally, we observe hysteresis curves in the fraction of adopted nodes owing to adopted nodes in the densely connected core in a network.