TITLE:
The Spreading Profile for an Emerging Infectious Disease and Its Resemblance to the KdV Solution
AUTHORS:
Zach Fendler, Valipuram S. Manoranjan
KEYWORDS:
SIR Model, Second-Order Approximation, Korteweg-de Vries Equation, Nonlinear PDE, Solitary Wave
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Applied Mathematics and Physics,
Vol.13 No.8,
August
18,
2025
ABSTRACT: Modern times have shown that understanding infectious diseases is imperative to our survival. In this study, we gain an understanding of the SIR model for novel or emerging infectious diseases by deriving time-dependent solutions for the spreading profiles using a second-order approximation. We noticed that we got a solution that resembles the well-known soliton solution of the Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation. The KdV equation is a deterministic nonlinear partial differential equation that possesses a solitary wave solution known as a soliton. Using phase portrait analysis, we can show that the graphical time profile of the number of infected in the SIR model is qualitatively the same as the KdV wave profile.