Combinatorial Growth Model

The model is robust to small lifetime noise in the stochastic branching-process extension. The deterministic formulation represents the two-equilibrium structure while simplifying the experimentally observed transition over four generations. After the first division, each division produces one faster daughter and one slower daughter with fixed doubling times. The model starts from one bacterium and discretizes time in increments of delta. The unique positive root of the characteristic equation determines long-run population growth.