ANDREA AGAZZI - RESEARCH ASSOCIATE AT DUKE UNIVERSITY - SCALING LIMITS FOR STOCHASTIC CHEMICAL REACTION NETWORK DYNAMICS

In the domain of systems biology, the dynamics of arbitrary networks of chemical reactions are often modelled by mass action kinetics. At the microscopic level, these models consist of stochastic processes on discrete spaces, called jump Markov processes. When the volume of the reactor is large, i.e., in the limit of a large number of molecules, such stochastic dynamics converge to the solutions of a set of algebraic ordinary differential equations (called the fluid limit). Fluctuations around the asymptotic trajectories can in principle be studied through large deviations theory in path space, also called Wentzell-Freidlin (W-F) theory.
In this talk, Dr Agazzi will first review the class of models under investigation and their large-volume scaling properties. He will then highlight connections between the structure of the network and the asymptotic behaviour of their fluid limit trajectories. Finally, he will formulate some relevant theorems in W-F theory, giving sufficient conditions for their application.
This is joint work with Amir Dembo and Jean-Pierre Eckmann.

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