Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society
Volume 2008 (2008), Article ID 590142, 26 pages
doi:10.1155/2008/590142
Research Article

Discrete Vector Models for Catalysis and Autocatalysis

Ernst-Christoph Haß,1 Sonja Sauerbrei,2 and Peter Jörg Plath3

1Institut für Angewandte und Physikalische Chemie, Arbeitsgruppe Chemische Synergetik, Universität Bremen, Bibliothekstraße NW 2, 28359 Bremen, Germany
2Department of Physical Chemistry, Spatiotemporal Self-organization Group, Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Faradayweg 4-6, 14195 Berlin, Germany
3Department of Physical Chemistry - Complex Systems Group, Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Faradayweg 4-6, 14195 Berlin, Germany

Received 21 November 2007; Accepted 19 March 2008

Academic Editor: Leonid Berezansky

Copyright © 2008 Ernst-Christoph Haß et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Based on Ruch's concept of diagram lattices formed by Young diagrams we investigated the possibility to transform incomparable diagrams into comparable ones by means of vector catalysis. Ruch's diagram lattices allow a very general description of comparing frequency distributions by their mixing-character as an order relation which is equivalent to majorisation in the mathematical theory of inequalities. Dealing with Young diagrams or vectors containing only integer components, respectively, vector catalysis is strongly related to entanglement catalysis in quantum informatics. In a very systematic way the diagram lattices of the partitions up to the number n=20 have been searched for incomparable pairs which can be catalysed. This concept opens the opportunity for regarding vector catalysis as a universal phenomenon which is not restricted to the quantum mechanical idea of entanglement catalysis. Such a general approach offers the possibility to compare vector catalysis with chemical ideas of catalysis and autocatalysis in a very fundamental sense. We emphasize that vector catalysis is a universally valid procedure for classification purposes, where incomparable sequences of symbols are transformed into comparable ones in a much higher dimensional space ignoring any physical interpretation of these symbols.