Print Email Facebook Twitter Accuracy criterion for the mean-field approximation in susceptible-infected-susceptible epidemics on networks Title Accuracy criterion for the mean-field approximation in susceptible-infected-susceptible epidemics on networks Author Van Mieghem, P.F.A. Van de Bovenkamp, R. Faculty Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science Department Intelligent Systems Date 2015-03-30 Abstract Mean-field approximations (MFAs) are frequently used in physics. When a process (such as an epidemic or a synchronization) on a network is approximated by MFA, a major hurdle is the determination of those graphs for which MFA is reasonably accurate. Here, we present an accuracy criterion for Markovian susceptible-infected-susceptible (SIS) epidemics on any network, based on the spectrum of the adjacency and SIS covariance matrix. We evaluate the MFA criterion for the complete and star graphs analytically, and numerically for connected Erd?s-Rényi random graphs for small size N?14. The accuracy of MFA increases with average degree and with N. Precise simulations (up to network sizes N=100) of the MFA accuracy criterion versus N for the complete graph, star, square lattice, and path graphs lead us to conjecture that the worst MFA accuracy decreases, for large N, proportionally to the inverse of the spectral radius of the adjacency matrix of the graph. To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:d5c0a372-7397-4fc7-8aba-9642fe22decf DOI https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.91.032812 Publisher American Physical Society ISSN 1539-3755 Source http://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.91.032812 Source Physical Review E, 91 (3), 2015 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights © 2015 American Physical Society Files PDF VanMieghem_2015.pdf 533.37 KB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:d5c0a372-7397-4fc7-8aba-9642fe22decf/datastream/OBJ/view