Driven spin dynamics enhances cryptochrome magnetoreception: Towards live quantum sensing

• Main Authors: Smith, Luke D, Chowdhury, Farhan T, Peasgood, Iona, Dawkins, Nahnsu, Kattnig, Daniel R
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 15-06-2022
• Subjects: Physics - Biological Physics; Physics - Computational Physics; Physics - Quantum Physics
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2206.07355

Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters 13, 10500 (2022) 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.