Explaining the avian compass through sustained quantum dynamics in driven, open three-radical systems

在过去的25年里，我们见证了量子技术的出现，包括量子计算机或模拟器，从科学梦想到现实。b谷歌声称已经实现了量子霸权，这刺激了利用量子优势的全球竞赛。由量子计算机的应用推动的下一个重大进步可能在几十年内成为现实。这一突破取决于一个基本的必要条件：需要在嘈杂的环境中维持量子叠加态，以及至关重要的纠缠态。大自然是否已经进化到以超越当前技术的方式利用量子现象？真正的量子效应能在温暖、潮湿和嘈杂的生活环境中发挥作用吗？这是否提供了优于“经典”流程的决定性优势？事实上，在过去四十年中积累的证据确实支持这样一个结论，即各种生物体利用相干量子动力学来实现磁感受：感知地磁场的能力。然而，相干量子效应是如何在温暖、潮湿和嘈杂的环境中发挥作用的，这是生物学的特征，还有待证明。先前的研究提供了一个概念模型，但未能使持续的量子相干性合理化，这种相干性被认为能够使这种对磁场的精致灵敏度成为可能。我们认为这种失败是对生物环境描述不充分的结果，即量子系统的开放性，因为它与蛋白质运动相耦合——我们将在这里克服这一缺陷。这种处理方法将解释生命系统如何运用量子效应的好处，为生命提供决定性的优势。我们将通过聚焦来做到这一点，这是第一次在自由基对和三个自由基的系统上，我们希望能够证明，如果系统被驱动到一个亚稳态，在封闭系统公式中无法达到，那么自由基运动可以放大磁场效应并维持量子动力学。

In the past 25 years, we have witnessed the emergence of quantum technologies, including quantum computers or simulators, from a scientific dream to reality. Google's claim to have achieved quantum supremacy has spurred the global race toward harnessing the quantum advantage. The next major advance, enabled by the applications of quantum computers, may become a reality within decades. The breakthrough hinges on one fundamental imperative: the need to sustain quantum superpositions and, crucially, entanglement in noisy environments.Has nature evolved to exploit quantum phenomena in ways that surpass current technologies? Could truly quantum effects operate in the warm, wet and noisy environment that is characteristic of life? Does this provide a decisive advantage over "classical" processes? Indeed, evidence accumulated over the last four decades does support a conclusion that various organisms employ coherent quantum dynamics to enable magnetoreception: the ability to sense the geomagnetic field. Yet, it remains to be shown exactly how coherent quantum effects can operate in the warm, wet, and noisy surroundings that are characteristic of biology. Previous studies provided a conceptual model, but failed to rationalize the sustained quantum coherence that is believed to enable this exquisite sensitivity to the magnetic field. We believe this failure is a consequence of an inadequate description of the biological environment, i.e. the openness of the quantum system as it is coupled to the protein motion-a deficit which we here shall overcome. This treatment will explain how living systems could exercise the benefit of a quantum effect to provide a decisive advantage to life. We will do this by focusing, for the first time on systems of radical pairs and three radicals, for which we hope to be able to demonstrate that radical motion can amplify magnetic field effects and sustain quantum dynamics, if the system is driven to a metastable state not accessible in closed-system formulations.