Figure 3.

t_i, O, and v_b approaching stationary distributions in numerical simulations of the multiple origins accumulation model. First, we initialize a population of N cells with uniformly distributed cell ages. Durations between initiations of replication are calculated as Equation (2) and the noise in the initiation process is assumed to be normally distributed. In an initiation event, the number of origins in a cell is doubled. The corresponding division event occurs after a constant time C + D. In a division event, the number of origins in a cell, along with the size of the cell, is halved, and two identical cells are generated. There are no division events without the corresponding initiation events. Following this procedure, a population of cells will robustly reach a stationary distribution of cell sizes and number of origins per cell regardless of initial conditions. The plots here track one lineage of cells. Solid lines are moving averages. Here, C + D = 70 mins, τ = 20 mins, and σ_τ = 4 mins. These are biologically realistic choices. We set Δ = 1/2^{(C + D)/τ} so that 〈v_b〉 ≈ 1.