On the Simulation Power of Surface Chemical Reaction Networks

The Chemical Reaction Network (CRN) is a well-studied model that describes the interaction of molecules in well-mixed solutions. In 2014, Qian and Winfree [21] proposed the abstract surface chemical reaction network model (sCRN), which takes advantage of spatial separation by placing molecules on a structured surface, limiting the interaction between molecules. In this model, molecules can only react with their immediate neighbors. Many follow-up works study the computational and pattern-construction power of sCRNs. In this work, our goal is to describe the power of sCRN by relating the model to other well-studied models in distributed computation. Our main result is to show that, given the same initial configuration, sCRN, affinity-strengthening tile automata, cellular automata, and amoebot can all simulate each other (up to unavoidable rotation and reflection of the pattern). One of our techniques is coloring on-the-fly, which allows all molecules in sCRN to have a global orientation.