Analysis of epidemic propagation using mean field theory on signed graphs

Over the past few decades, the study of epidemic propagation has caught widespread attention from many areas. The field of graphs contains a wide body of research, yet only a few studies explore epidemic propagation’s dynamics in “signed” networks. Motivated by this problem, in this paper we propose a new epidemic propagation model for signed networks, denoted as S-SIS. To explain our analysis, we utilized the mean field theory to demonstrate the theoretical results. When we compare epidemic propagation through negative links to those only having positive links, we find that a higher proportion of infected nodes actually spreads at a relatively small infection rate. It is also found that when the infection rate is higher than a certain value, the overall spreading in a signed network begins showing signs of suppression. Finally, in order to verify our findings, we apply the S-SIS model on Erdös–Rényi random network and scale-free network, and the simulation results is well consist with the theoretical analysis.