Reachability with Restricted Reactions in Inhibitory Chemical Reaction Networks

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Bajaj, Divya, Fu, Bin, Knobel, Ryan, Luchsinger, Austin, Massie, Aiden, Santos, Pablo, Santos, Ramiro, Schweller, Robert, Tomai, Evan, Wylie, Tim
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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author Bajaj, Divya
Fu, Bin
Knobel, Ryan
Luchsinger, Austin
Massie, Aiden
Santos, Pablo
Santos, Ramiro
Schweller, Robert
Tomai, Evan
Wylie, Tim
author_facet Bajaj, Divya
Fu, Bin
Knobel, Ryan
Luchsinger, Austin
Massie, Aiden
Santos, Pablo
Santos, Ramiro
Schweller, Robert
Tomai, Evan
Wylie, Tim
contents Chemical Reaction Networks (CRNs) are a well-established model of distributed computing characterized by quantities of molecular species that can transform or change through applications of reactions. A fundamental problem in CRNs is the reachability problem, which asks if an initial configuration of species can transition to a target configuration through an applicable sequence of reactions. It is well-known that the reachability problem in general CRNs was recently proven to be Ackermann-complete. However, if the CRN's reactions are restricted in both power, such as only deleting species (deletion-only rules) or consuming and producing an equal number of species (volume-preserving rules), and size (unimolecular or bimolecular rules), then reachability falls below Ackermann-completeness, and is even solvable in polynomial time for deletion-only systems. In this paper, we investigate reachability under this set of restricted unimolecular and bimolecular reactions, but in the Priority-Inhibitory CRN and Inhibitory CRN models. These models extend a traditional CRN by allowing some reactions to be inhibited from firing in a configuration if certain species are present; the exact inhibition behavior varies between the models. We first show that reachability with Priority iCRNs mostly remains in P for deletion-only systems, but becomes NP-complete for one case. We then show that reachability with deletion-only reactions for iCRNs is mostly NP-complete, and PSPACE-complete even for (1,1)-size (general) reactions. We also provide FPT algorithms for solving most of the reachability problems for the iCRN model. Finally, we show reachability for CRNs with states is already NP-hard for the simplest deletion-only systems, and is PSPACE-complete even for (general) (1,1)-size reactions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_17510
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Reachability with Restricted Reactions in Inhibitory Chemical Reaction Networks
Bajaj, Divya
Fu, Bin
Knobel, Ryan
Luchsinger, Austin
Massie, Aiden
Santos, Pablo
Santos, Ramiro
Schweller, Robert
Tomai, Evan
Wylie, Tim
Computational Complexity
F.1.1; F.1.3
Chemical Reaction Networks (CRNs) are a well-established model of distributed computing characterized by quantities of molecular species that can transform or change through applications of reactions. A fundamental problem in CRNs is the reachability problem, which asks if an initial configuration of species can transition to a target configuration through an applicable sequence of reactions. It is well-known that the reachability problem in general CRNs was recently proven to be Ackermann-complete. However, if the CRN's reactions are restricted in both power, such as only deleting species (deletion-only rules) or consuming and producing an equal number of species (volume-preserving rules), and size (unimolecular or bimolecular rules), then reachability falls below Ackermann-completeness, and is even solvable in polynomial time for deletion-only systems. In this paper, we investigate reachability under this set of restricted unimolecular and bimolecular reactions, but in the Priority-Inhibitory CRN and Inhibitory CRN models. These models extend a traditional CRN by allowing some reactions to be inhibited from firing in a configuration if certain species are present; the exact inhibition behavior varies between the models. We first show that reachability with Priority iCRNs mostly remains in P for deletion-only systems, but becomes NP-complete for one case. We then show that reachability with deletion-only reactions for iCRNs is mostly NP-complete, and PSPACE-complete even for (1,1)-size (general) reactions. We also provide FPT algorithms for solving most of the reachability problems for the iCRN model. Finally, we show reachability for CRNs with states is already NP-hard for the simplest deletion-only systems, and is PSPACE-complete even for (general) (1,1)-size reactions.
title Reachability with Restricted Reactions in Inhibitory Chemical Reaction Networks
topic Computational Complexity
F.1.1; F.1.3
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.17510