Discrete coagulation--fragmentation systems in weighted $\ell^1$ spaces

Abstract: We study an infinite system of ordinary differential equations that models the evolution of coagulating and fragmenting clusters, which we assume to be composed of identical units. Under very mild assumptions on the coefficients we prove existence, uniqueness and positivity of solutions of a corresponding semi-linear Cauchy problem in a weighted $\ell^1$ space. This requires the application of novel results, which we prove for abstract semi-linear Cauchy problems in Banach lattices where the non-linear term is defined only on a dense subspace.