Minimal reaction schemes for pattern formation

We link continuum models of reaction-diffusion systems that exhibit diffusion-driven instability to constraints on the particle-scale interactions underpinning this instability. While innumerable biological, chemical, and physical patterns have been studied through the lens of Alan Turing’s reaction-diffusion pattern-forming mechanism, the connections between models of pattern formation and the nature of the particle interactions generating them have been relatively understudied in comparison to the substantial efforts that have been focused on understanding proposed continuum systems. To derive the necessary reactant combinations for the most parsimonious reaction schemes, we analyse the emergent continuum models in terms of possible generating elementary reaction schemes. This analysis results in the complete list of such schemes containing the fewest reactions; these are the simplest possible hypothetical mass-action models for a pattern-forming system of two interacting species.