# The Azimuth Project Blog - network theory (part 24) (Rev #3, changes)

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This page is a blog article in progress, written by John Baez. To see discussions of this article while it is being written, go to the Azimuth Forum.

### Review

The storm is brewing for the final climax, so let’s remember where we are. We start with a stochastic reaction network:

This consists of:

• finite sets of transitions $T$, complexes $K$ and species $S$,

• a map $r: T \to (0,\infty)$ giving a rate constant for each transition,

source and target maps $s,t : T \to K$ saying where each transition starts and ends,

• a map $Y : K \to \mathbb{N}^S$ saying how each complex is made of species.

Then we extend $s, t$ and $Y$ to linear maps:

Then we put inner products on these vector spaces as described last time, which lets us ‘turn around’ the maps $s$ and $t$ by taking their adjoints:

$s^\dagger, t^\dagger : \mathbb{R}^K \to \mathbb{R}^T$

More surprisingly, we can ‘turn around’ $Y$ and get a nonlinear map using ‘matrix exponentiation’:

$\begin{array}{ccc} \mathbb{R}^S &\to& \mathbb{R}^K \\ x &\mapsto& x^Y \end{array}$

This is most easily understood by thinking of $x$ as a row vector and $Y$ as a matrix:

$\begin{array}{ccl} x^Y &=& {\left( \begin{array}{cccc} x_1 , & x_2 , & \dots, & x_k \end{array} \right)}^{ \left( \begin{array}{cccc} Y_{11} & Y_{12} & \cdots & Y_{1 \ell} \\ Y_{21} & Y_{22} & \cdots & Y_{2 \ell} \\ \vdots & \vdots & \ddots & \vdots \\ Y_{k1} & Y_{k2} & \cdots & Y_{k \ell} \end{array} \right)} \\ \\ &=& \left( x_1^{Y_{11}} \cdots x_k^{Y_{k1}} ,\; \dots, \; x_1^{Y_{1 \ell}} \cdots x_k^{Y_{k \ell}} \right) \end{array}$

Remember, complexes are made out of species. The matrix entry $Y_{i j}$ says how many things of the $j$th species there are in a complex of the $i$th kind. If $\psi \in \mathbb{R}^K$ says how many complexes there are of each kind, $Y \psi \in \mathbb{R}^S$ says how many things there are of each species. Conversely, if $x \in mathbb{R}^S$ says how many things there are of each species, $Y^x \in \mathbb{R}^K$ says how many ways we can build each kind of complex from them.

So, we get these maps:

The Next, theboundary operator

$\partial : \mathbb{R}^T \to \mathbb{R}^K$

describes how each transition causes a change in complexes:

$\partial = t - s$

As we saw last time, there is a Hamiltonian

$H : \mathbb{R}^K \to \mathbb{R}^K$

describing a Markov processes on the set of complexes, given by

$H = \partial s^\dagger$

But the star of the show is the rate equation. This describes how the number of things of each species changes with time. We write these numbers in a list and get a vector $x \in \mathbb{R}^S$ with nonnegative components. The rate equation says:

$\displaystyle{ \frac{d x}{d t} = Y H x^Y }$

We are can looking read for this as follows:equilibrium solutions of the rate equation, where the number of things of each species doesn’t change with time at all:

$x$ says how many things of each species we have now.

$x^Y$ says how many complexes of each kind we can build from these species.

$s^\dagger x^Y$ says how many transitions of each kind can originate starting from these complexes, with each transition weighted by its rate.

$H x^Y = \partial s^\dagger x^Y$ is the rate of change of the number of complexes of each kind, due to these transitions.

$Y H x^Y$ is the rate of change of the number of things of each species.

### The zero deficiency theorem

We are looking for equilibrium solutions of the rate equation, where the number of things of each species doesn’t change at all:

$Y H x^Y = 0$

In fact we will find complex balanced equilibrium solutions, where even the number of complexes of each kind don’t change:

$H x^Y = 0$

More precisely, we have:

Deficiency Zero Theorem (Child’s Version). Suppose we have a reaction network obeying these two conditions:

1. It is weakly reversible, meaning that whenever there’s a transition from one complex $\kappa$ to another $\kappa'$ , there’s a sequence directed path of transitions going back from$\kappa'$ to $\kappa$.

2. It has deficiency zero, meaning  \mathrm{im} d \partial \cap \mathrm{ker} Y = \{ 0 \}.

Then for any choice of rate constants there exists an a complex balanced equilibrium solution of the rate equation where all species are present in nonzero amounts. In other words, there exists$x \in (0,\infty)^S$ with$H x^Y = 0$.

### Proof of the zero deficiency theorem

$H x^Y = 0$

Proof. Because our reaction network is weakly reversible, the theorems in Part 23 show there exists $\psi \in (0,\infty)^K$ with

$H \psi = 0$

This $\psi$ may not be of the form $x^Y$, but we shall adjust $\psi$ so that it becomes of this form, while still remaining a solution of $H \psi = 0$.

We need to use a few facts from linear algebra. If $V$ is a finite-dimensional vector space with inner product, the orthogonal complement $L^\perp$ of a subspace $L \subseteq V$ consists of vectors that are orthogonal to everything in $L$:

$L^\perp = \{ v \in V : \; \forall w \in L \; \langle v, w \rangle = 0 \}$

We have

$(L \cap M)^\perp = L^\perp + M^\perp$

where $L$ and $M$ are subspaces of $V$ and $+$ denotes the sum of subspaces. Also, if $T: V \to W$ is a linear map between finite-dimensional vector spaces with inner product, we have

$(\mathrm{ker} T)^\perp = \mathrm{im} T^\dagger$

and

$(\mathrm{im} T)^\perp = \mathrm{ker} T^\dagger$

Now, because our reaction network has deficiency zero, we know that

$\mathrm{im} \partial \cap \mathrm{ker} Y = \{ 0 \}$

Taking the orthogonal complement of this subspace of $\mathbb{R}^S$, we get

$(\mathrm{im} \partial \cap \mathrm{ker} Y)^\perp = \mathbb{R}^S$

but using the rules we mentioned, we obtain

$\ker \partial^\dagger + \im Y^\dagger = \mathbb{R}^S$

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