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Beyond Murray's Law: Non-Universal Branching Exponents from Vessel-Wall Metabolic Costs

Authors: Marchesi, Riccardo;

Beyond Murray's Law: Non-Universal Branching Exponents from Vessel-Wall Metabolic Costs

Abstract

Murray's cubic branching law ($α=3$) predicts a universal diameter scaling exponent for all hierarchical transport networks, yet arterial trees yield $α\sim 2.7-2.9$. We show that this discrepancy has a structural origin: Murray's universality is an artifact of cost homogeneity, not a biological property. Incorporating the empirical vessel-wall thickness law $h(r)=c_0 r^p$ ($p \approx 0.77$) introduces a third metabolic cost term $\propto r^{1+p}$ that renders the cost function inhomogeneous with incommensurate scaling exponents. By Cauchy's functional equation, homogeneity is necessary and sufficient for a universal branching exponent to exist; its absence implies non-universality, and Murray's law is identified as a singular degeneracy of the cost-function family rather than a general principle. We prove that the resulting scale-dependent exponent satisfies the strict bounds $(5+p)/2 < α^*(Q) < 3$ independently of flow asymmetry (Theorem 4, Corollary 5). The static wall-tissue mechanism bounds the symmetric bifurcation exponent to $α_t \in [2.90, 2.94]$ from measured parameters, marking a first-order symmetry breaking from Murray's law that narrows the empirical gap by one-third. The remaining discrepancy with the cardiovascular mean ($α_{exp} \approx 2.70$) is not a model failure but a mathematical necessity that signals the independent contribution of pulsatile wave dynamics. Additionally, the wall cost breaks Murray's topological degeneracy, bounding the optimal branching number to small finite integers; binary bifurcation emerges as the physiologically selected minimum under steric constraints.

19 pages, 1 figure. Code and data available at https://zenodo.org/records/18975093

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Keywords

optimal branching number, Biophysics, vascular networks, FOS: Physical sciences, Mathematical Physics (math-ph), Fluid Mechanics, bifurcation angle, metabolic cost function, transport network optimization, non-universality, Biological Physics, Biological Physics (physics.bio-ph), Vascular Biology, FOS: Mathematics, scale-dependent exponent, wall-thickness scaling, branching exponents, Network Theory, Murray's law, Mathematical Physics

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selected citations
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This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
0
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