Bifurcation of an SIS model with nonlinear contact rate (Q493836)

The authors investigate an epidemiologic model of SIS-type whose contact rate is rational in I, with quadratic numerator and denominator. There are four essential parameters, and it is shown that, depending on the parameters, there may exist zero, one or two equilibria in the open positive quadrant, caused by a saddle-node bifurcation. In the case of two interior equilibria, one of them may be a weak focus, and the authors prove by using a Mathematica program, that its multiplicity may be one and two, thus leading to Hopf bifurcation resp. the emergence of two limit cycles. If only one interior equilibrium E exists, the parameters may be chosen in such a way that E is a cusp of codimension two. Selecting two appropriate bifurcation parameters, the authors finally prove that at E the system undergoes a Bogdanov-Takens bifurcation. This is also illustrated by a two-dimensional bifurcation diagram.