Statistical Physics Seminar | June 21, 16:00

Geometry of nonequilibrium reaction networks

Sara Dal Cengio

Schnakenberg’s paper from 1976 has been foundational to the field of network thermodynamics. Exploiting tools from graph theory and circuit analysis, it provides a geometrical framework to identify the fundamental observables in master-equation dynamics. However, because chemical reactions are usually many-to-many, chemical networks are rather described by hypergraphs, which lack a systematized algebraic treatment and a clear geometric intuition. Here we fill this gap by proposing a framework that reconciles the algebraic and geometric representations of CNRs, allowing one to identify conservative and driving chemical forces. As an application, we propose a reconstruction algorithm for large metabolic networks consistent with Kirchhoff’s Voltage and Current Laws.


Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire de Physique, Université Grenoble–Alpes
SR 0.01
Contact: Joachim Krug