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A family of sparse polynomial systems arising in chemical reaction systems


SC 99-27 Karin Gatermann, Birkett Huber: A family of sparse polynomial systems arising in chemical reaction systems


Abstract: We investigate a special sparse polynomial system arising in the model of mass action kinetics of chemical reaction systems. The sparsity of the system is defined by a weighted directed graph and weighted bipartite graph. Feinberg has given some results on the number of positive solutions for two special cases of sparse systems. We explain is approach and give alternative proofs. Then we attack the general case with a new result by Sturmfels from real algebraic geometry where the number of positive solutions is related to the alternating cells of of mixed subdivision of the Newton polytopes.
Keywords: mass action kinetics, sparse polynomial systems, positive solutions
MSC: 68Q40, 14M25