On the Poincare-Hill cycle map of rotational random walk: locating the stochastic limit cycle in a reversible Schnakenberg model

Recent studies on stochastic oscillations mostly focus on the power spectral analysis. However, the power spectrum yields information only on the frequency of oscillation and cannot differentiate between a stable limit cycle and a stable focus. The cycle flux, introduced by Hill (Hill 1989 Free energy transduction and biochemical cycle kinetics), is a quantitative measure of the net movement over a closed path, but it is impractical to compute for all possible cycles in systems with a large state space. Through simple examples, we introduce concepts used to quantify stochastic oscillation, such as the cycle flux, the Hill-Qian stochastic circulation and rotation number. We introduce a novel device, the Poincare-Hill cycle map (PHCM), which combines the concept of Hill's cycle flux with the Poincare map from nonlinear dynamics. Applying the PHCM to a reversible extension of an oscillatory chemical system, the Schnakenberg model, reveals stable oscillations outside the Hopf bifurcation region in which the deterministic system contains a limit cycle. Bistable behaviour is found on the small volume scale with high probabilities around both the fixed point and the limit cycle. Convergence to the deterministic system is found in the thermodynamic limit.