A one-dimensional hyperbolic reaction-diffusion model of epidemics is developed to describe the dynamics of diseases spread occurring in an environment where three kinds of individuals mutually interact: the susceptibles, the infectives, and the removed. It is assumed that the disease is transmitted from the infected population to the susceptible one according to a nonlinear convex incidence rate. The model, based upon the framework of extended thermodynamics, removes the unphysical feature of instantaneous diffusive effects, which is typical of parabolic models. Linear stability analyses are performed to study the nature of the equilibrium states against uniform and nonuniform perturbations. Emphasis is given to the occurrence of Hopf and Turing bifurcations, which break the temporal and the spatial symmetry of the system, respectively. The existence of traveling wave solutions connecting two steady states is also discussed. The governing equations are also integrated numerically to validate the analytical results and to characterize the spatiotemporal evolution of diseases.

• Received 29 May 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.88.052719