Uniqueness of weakly reversible and deficiency zero realizations of dynamical systems

Abstract

In general, if a dynamical system is generated by some reaction network via mass-action kinetics, then it can also be generated by many other reaction networks. Here we show that if a dynamical system is generated by a weakly reversible network that has deficiency equal to zero, then this network must be unique. Moreover, we show that both of these hypotheses (i.e., weak reversibility and deficiency zero) are necessary for uniqueness.