文章基本信息

标题：An open quantum system approach to the radical pair mechanism
本地全文：下载
作者：Betony Adams ; Ilya Sinayskiy ; Francesco Petruccione 等
期刊名称：Scientific Reports
电子版ISSN：2045-2322
出版年度：2018
卷号：8
期号：1
页码：15719
DOI：10.1038/s41598-018-34007-4
语种：English
出版社：Springer Nature
摘要：The development of the radical pair mechanism has allowed for theoretical explanation of the fact that magnetic fields are observed to have an effect on chemical reactions. The mechanism describes how an external magnetic field can alter chemical yields by interacting with the spin state of a pair of radicals. In the field of quantum biology, there has been some interest in the application of the mechanism to biological systems. This paper takes an open quantum systems approach to a model of the radical pair mechanism in order to derive a master equation in the Born-Markov approximation for the case of two electrons, each interacting with an environment of nuclear spins as well as the external magnetic field, then placed in a dissipative bosonic bath. This model is used to investigate two different cases relating to radical pair dynamics. The first uses a collective coupling approach to simplify calculations for larger numbers of nuclei interacting with the radical pair. The second looks at the effects of different hyperfine configurations of the radical pair model, for instance the case in which one of the electrons interact with two nuclei with different hyperfine coupling constants. The results of these investigations are analysed to see if they offer any insights into the biological application of the radical pair mechanism in avian magnetoreception.