Transitions Induced by the Discreteness of Molecules in a Small Autocatalytic System
Biological Physics
2007-05-23 v2 Statistical Mechanics
Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems
Subcellular Processes
Abstract
Autocatalytic reaction system with a small number of molecules is studied numerically by stochastic particle simulations. A novel state due to fluctuation and discreteness in molecular numbers is found, characterized as extinction of molecule species alternately in the autocatalytic reaction loop. Phase transition to this state with the change of the system size and flow is studied, while a single-molecule switch of the molecule distributions is reported. Relevance of the results to intracellular processes are briefly discussed.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.physics/0008238,
title = {Transitions Induced by the Discreteness of Molecules in a Small Autocatalytic System},
author = {Yuichi Togashi and Kunihiko Kaneko},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:physics/0008238},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
5 pages, 4 figures