Computing the moments of high dimensional solutions of the master equation

Derived from the Markov character only, the master equation of chemical reactions is an accurate stochastic description of quite general systems in chemistry. Exact solutions of this equation are rare and the most frequently used approximative solution method is to write down the corresponding set of reaction rate equations. In many cases this approximation is not valid, or only partially so, as stochastic effects caused by the natural noise present in the full description of the problem are poorly captured. In this paper it is shown how a certain set of higher order equations can be derived. It is shown by theory and example that stochastic effects are better captured using this technique while still maintaining the computational advantages of the reaction rate approach. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.