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An open quantum system approach to the radical pair mechanism

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 o...

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Autores principales: Adams, Betony, Sinayskiy, Ilya, Petruccione, Francesco
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6200754/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30356085
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-34007-4
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author Adams, Betony
Sinayskiy, Ilya
Petruccione, Francesco
author_facet Adams, Betony
Sinayskiy, Ilya
Petruccione, Francesco
author_sort Adams, Betony
collection PubMed
description 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.
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spelling pubmed-62007542018-10-25 An open quantum system approach to the radical pair mechanism Adams, Betony Sinayskiy, Ilya Petruccione, Francesco Sci Rep Article 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. Nature Publishing Group UK 2018-10-24 /pmc/articles/PMC6200754/ /pubmed/30356085 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-34007-4 Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Adams, Betony
Sinayskiy, Ilya
Petruccione, Francesco
An open quantum system approach to the radical pair mechanism
title An open quantum system approach to the radical pair mechanism
title_full An open quantum system approach to the radical pair mechanism
title_fullStr An open quantum system approach to the radical pair mechanism
title_full_unstemmed An open quantum system approach to the radical pair mechanism
title_short An open quantum system approach to the radical pair mechanism
title_sort open quantum system approach to the radical pair mechanism
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6200754/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30356085
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-34007-4
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