Figure 2.

Equilibrium number of cells as a function of the infection multiplicity, according to model (1). The number of cells declines exponentially with the infection multiplicity. (a) If the rate of viral replication is relatively slow and does not increase with infection multiplicity, the numerical simulations reflect the expected exponential decline. (b) For faster viral replication rates, however, the equilibrium number of cells with increasing infection multiplicity declines much slower, and in numerical simulations, most infected cells accumulate at the end of the infection cascade, giving rise to artificial properties. (c, d) This effect is more pronounced if the rate of viral replication increases for higher infection multiplicities, ε>0. Base parameters were chosen as follows. λ=10; d=0.1; β=0.1; k=1; u=1. For (a) ε=0; a=2. For (b) ε=0; a=0.1. For (c) ε=1000; a=2. For (d) ε=1000; a=0.1. Infection cascade length n=100.