Noise-induced multistability in chemical systems: Discrete versus continuum modeling

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2015 Apr;91(4):042111. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.91.042111. Epub 2015 Apr 10.

Abstract

The noisy dynamics of chemical systems is commonly studied using either the chemical master equation (CME) or the chemical Fokker-Planck equation (CFPE). The latter is a continuum approximation of the discrete CME approach. It has recently been shown that for a particular system, the CFPE captures noise-induced multistability predicted by the CME. This phenomenon involves the CME's marginal probability distribution changing from unimodal to multimodal as the system size decreases below a critical value. We here show that the CFPE does not always capture noise-induced multistability. In particular we find simple chemical systems for which the CME predicts noise-induced multistability, whereas the CFPE predicts monostability for all system sizes.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Computer Simulation
  • Models, Chemical*
  • Probability