18. Decoherence
Open quantum systems lose coherence and become classical
FAPP
In physics:
low temperature (below mK)
separation from the environment
In biology:
high temperature (300 K)
strong coupling (water and dipole moments)
Verdict: On the mass and length scale of amino acids and
nucleotides coherence is too short lived to make any
difference.
30. Articles of Faith
1. There is no such thing as classical, p and e stay
quantum: Molecules can hover between quantum and
classical all the time (The Poised Realm).
2. Without quantum parallelism evolution can’t beat
combinatorics.
3. Chemicals, which can stay coherent for a long time in a
hostile, coherence breaking environment (soup), have
more chance to try new combinatorial possibilities.
4. They are the ones which evolve into even larger
molecules.
5. Decoherence avoidance is a selectional advantage.
31. Fighting decoherence
Decoherence is fast for extended quantum states
Decoherence is slow for strongly localized states
Systems with strongly localized states are fragmented
Systems which are at the border of localization-
delocalization survive decoherence the most
Graph of the molecule should resemble the gigantic
component of a random graph at criticality
35. Purity decay of the chromophore ring with 1D Harper hamiltonian.
Vattay G, Kauffman S, Niiranen S (2014) Quantum Biology on the Edge
of Quantum Chaos. PLoS ONE 9(3): e89017.
38. Random matrix theory
Wigner and Dirac
(1951)
Universal GOE level
spacing statistics
Random nuclear interaction
Hamiltonian
Statistical description of
energy levels
Semicircle law for DOS
40. Metal-insulator transition
Disordered conductors
Random hopping between sites: GOE statistics, fully
connected quantum graph (gigantic component), delocalized
states, conductor, short coherence time
High on site randomness: Poisson statistics, fragmented
quantum graph, localized states, insulator, long coherence time
Phase transition between conductor and insulator at a critical
level of on site randomness,
Critical quantum chaos: semi-Poissonian statistics, critical
quantum graph, fractal states, conductor and long
coherence time
42. Articles of Faith 2.0
1. Critical quantum chaotic systems avoid decoherence the
best
2. Critical molecules don’t arise randomly, they require fine
tuning of parameters of the Hamiltonian
3. Critical molecules should be rare exceptions among
molecules in general
4. It is an evolutionary advantage for a molecule to be in the
critical chaotic state
5. Naturally evolved molecules -- molecules with
biological functions -- should be predominantly
critical