Decomposable and Essentially Univariate Mass-Action Systems: Extensions of the Deficiency One Theorem

The classical and extended deficiency one theorems by Feinberg apply to reaction networks with mass-action kinetics that have independent linkage classes or subnetworks, each with a deficiency of at most one and exactly one absorbing strong component. The theorems assume the existence of a positive equilibrium and guarantee the existence of a unique positive equilibrium in every stoichiometric compatibility class. In our work, we use the monomial dependency which extends the concept of deficiency. First, we provide a dependency one theorem for parametrized systems of polynomial equations that are essentially univariate and decomposable. As our main result, we present a corresponding theorem for mass-action systems, which permits subnetworks with arbitrary deficiency and arbitrary number of absorbing strong components. Finally, to complete the picture, we derive the extended deficiency one theorem as a special case of our more general dependency one theorem.