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Infection transferred between individuals in the same generation, often modeled by a law of mass action term proportional to susceptible and infected populations. This contrasts with vertical transmission from parent to offspring.

For this chemical reaction network, the law of mass action gives the reaction rates are $k_1{s}^{2}e$, $k_{2}c$ and $k_{3}c$. Their stoichiometry givesHere the convention for $k_1$ absorbs any combinatorial factor for two identical reactants. Direct differentiation gives the two conservation lawsEliminating $e$ and $p$ leavesFor positive $s_0,e_0,k_1$, use the dimensionless variables $u=s/s_0$, $v=c/e_0$ and $\tau =k_1{e}_0{s}_{0}t$. With prime marks denoting differentiation in $\tau$, this becomeswhere

For solar elemental abundances, take a molecular hydrogen- and helium-dominated atmosphere with atmospheric carbon-to-oxygen ratio near $0.55$. The principal oxygen-bearing molecule is generally water; the carbon and nitrogen carriers depend on both temperature and pressure.

At the cool $500\mathrm{K}$ observable upper layers, methane is the expected main carbon reservoir under chemical equilibrium, with abundant water and much less carbon monoxide. At the hotter layers approaching $1400\mathrm{K}$, carbon monoxide becomes the main carbon carrier and water contains much of the oxygen not bound in it. The relevant law of mass action follows fromLower temperature favors the exothermic methane-forming direction, while increasing pressure favors the side with fewer molecules. This explains why the change of dominant carrier cannot be specified by temperature alone.

Nitrogen is distributed between molecular nitrogen and ammonia. Cooling favors ammonia, but low pressure favors molecular nitrogen; it is therefore unsafe to call ammonia dominant throughout the $500\mathrm{K}$ low-pressure region. The exact partition requires the equilibrium constant for ${\mathrm{N}}_2+3{\mathrm{H}}_2\rightleftharpoons 2{\mathrm{NH}}_3$.

Carbon dioxide is usually a minor constituent at solar composition; hydrogen cyanide and acetylene are much less abundant than the principal carbon carriers in this oxygen-rich equilibrium case. Condensation can remove refractory species where a condensation curve is crossed. The robust cool-atmosphere expectation is a molecular hydrogen–helium background with methane and water, changing toward carbon monoxide in hotter layers. Precise mixing ratios require thermodynamic data and an explicitly specified elemental inventory after rainout.

At fixed temperature and pressure, the atmospheric carbon-to-oxygen ratio controls the division of the elemental inventory among carbon monoxide, methane, water and other molecules. For an oxygen-rich mixture, water can remain after carbon monoxide consumes its share of oxygen. Increasing the atmospheric carbon-to-oxygen ratio reduces the oxygen available for water, particularly in the hotter layers where carbon monoxide is stable. Near or above unity there, water can become strongly depleted while excess carbon feeds methane, hydrogen cyanide and acetylene. This familiar hot carbon-rich behavior should not be applied unchanged to every cool layer: at $500\mathrm{K}$, methane formation can leave substantial water even at high atmospheric carbon-to-oxygen ratio.

Increasing the atmospheric metallicity of a giant planet at fixed elemental ratios increases the heavy-element inventory relative to molecular hydrogen and helium. Abundances of water and the major carbon-bearing molecules generally rise while molecular hydrogen remains dominant. In that regime, the law of mass action for $\mathrm{CO}+{\mathrm{H}}_2\mathrm{O}\rightleftharpoons {\mathrm{CO}}_2+{\mathrm{H}}_2$ givesWhere carbon monoxide and water each scale roughly linearly with enrichment $Z$, carbon dioxide consequently scales approximately as $Z^2$. This scaling changes when molecular hydrogen ceases to dominate or chemical partitioning changes. Higher enrichment can also favor carbon monoxide over methane at fixed conditions, increase mean molecular weight, and reduce the atmospheric scale height and transmission-feature amplitudes. Cloud formation and atmospheric condensate rainout alter the observable elemental ratios relative to the bulk ones.

The susceptible equation may be writtenThe factor $b{e}^{-aS}$ is a density-dependent per-capita birth rate. The law of mass action gives the infection incidence $\beta SI$, which transfers individuals out of the susceptible compartment.

Likewise,There is no birth term in the infective equation, so only susceptible individuals reproduce in this model. Infectives die at total per-capita rate $d+\delta$. These terms define the susceptible-infective model with exponential density-dependent birth.

The first reaction is reversible, with reverse rate $k_{-1}{c}_1$. Applying the law of mass action to each reaction givesEach term has the sign dictated by whether the corresponding species is consumed or produced.

Under frequency-dependent mass-action kinetics, if $I(t)$ of the $N(t)$ individuals are infectious, the force of infection isOne newly infectious person in an otherwise susceptible population transmits at total rate approximately $\beta$ for mean infectious duration $1/\gamma$. Hence the basic reproduction number iswhere $d_I$ is the infectious, rather than latent-plus-infectious, duration.

A power-law propensity uses the same reactant monomial as a deterministic law of mass action, scaled by reactor volume. For example, a bimolecular channel may be assigned $a(x)=\alpha x^2/V$. This convention differs at small copy number from the combinatorial propensity $\alpha x(x-1)/V$ and must therefore be stated explicitly.