A phase transition in the Susceptible-Infected model on hypernetworks

Abstract

We derive the master equations for the Susceptible-Infected (SI) model on general hypernetworks with~$N$-body interactions. We solve these equations exactly for infinite~$d$-regular hypernetworks, and obtain an explicit solution for the expected infection level as a function of time. The solution shows that the epidemic spreads out to the entire population as~$t \to \infty$ if and only if the initial infection level exceeds a positive threshold value. This phase transition is a high-order interactions effect, which is absent with pairwise interactions.