Driven spin dynamics enhances cryptochrome magnetoreception: Towards live quantum sensing
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arXiv
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| Hauptverfasser: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2022
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| _version_ | 1866918450062950400 |
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| author | Smith, Luke D. Chowdhury, Farhan T. Peasgood, Iona Dawkins, Nahnsu Kattnig, Daniel R. |
| author_facet | Smith, Luke D. Chowdhury, Farhan T. Peasgood, Iona Dawkins, Nahnsu Kattnig, Daniel R. |
| contents | The mechanism underlying magnetoreception has long eluded explanation. A popular hypothesis attributes this sense to the quantum coherent spin dynamics of spin-selective recombination reactions of radical pairs in the protein cryptochrome. However, concerns about the validity of the hypothesis have been raised as unavoidable inter-radical interactions, such as strong electron-electron dipolar coupling, appear to suppress its sensitivity. We demonstrate that this can be overcome by driving the spin system through a modulation of the inter-radical distance. It is shown that this dynamical process markedly enhances geomagnetic field sensitivity in strongly coupled radical pairs via a Landau-Zener type transition between singlet and triplet states. These findings suggest that a "live" harmonically driven magnetoreceptor can be more sensitive than its "dead" static counterpart. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2206_07355 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Driven spin dynamics enhances cryptochrome magnetoreception: Towards live quantum sensing Smith, Luke D. Chowdhury, Farhan T. Peasgood, Iona Dawkins, Nahnsu Kattnig, Daniel R. Quantum Physics Biological Physics Computational Physics The mechanism underlying magnetoreception has long eluded explanation. A popular hypothesis attributes this sense to the quantum coherent spin dynamics of spin-selective recombination reactions of radical pairs in the protein cryptochrome. However, concerns about the validity of the hypothesis have been raised as unavoidable inter-radical interactions, such as strong electron-electron dipolar coupling, appear to suppress its sensitivity. We demonstrate that this can be overcome by driving the spin system through a modulation of the inter-radical distance. It is shown that this dynamical process markedly enhances geomagnetic field sensitivity in strongly coupled radical pairs via a Landau-Zener type transition between singlet and triplet states. These findings suggest that a "live" harmonically driven magnetoreceptor can be more sensitive than its "dead" static counterpart. |
| title | Driven spin dynamics enhances cryptochrome magnetoreception: Towards live quantum sensing |
| topic | Quantum Physics Biological Physics Computational Physics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2206.07355 |