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Autocatalytic chemical reaction networks can collectively replicate or maintain their constituents despite degradation reactions only above a certain threshold, which we refer to as the decay threshold. When the chemical network has a Jacobian matrix with the Metzler property, we leverage analytical methods developed for Markov processes to show that the decay threshold can be calculated by solving a linear problem, instead of the standard eigenvalue problem. We explore how this decay threshold depends on the network parameters, such as its size, the directionality of the reactions (reversible or irreversible), and its connectivity, then we deduce design principles from this that might be relevant to research on the Origin of Life.
P New Journal Of Physics
By: Armand Despons, Jérémie Unterberger and David Lacoste.
New Journal of Physics, Volume 27, December 2025
DOI: 10.1088/1367-2630/ae2153