Quantum control and entanglement in a chemical compass

TL;DR

This paper explores how quantum control techniques can manipulate the radical pair mechanism, affecting biological magnetic sensing and revealing the role of entanglement in chemical compass sensitivity.

Contribution

It introduces quantum control methods to modulate the chemical compass performance and investigates the connection between entanglement and magnetic field sensitivity.

Findings

Quantum control can enhance or suppress the chemical compass response.

Entanglement correlates with the magnetic sensitivity of the radical pair.

Quantum technologies offer new ways to probe biological functions.

Abstract

The radical pair mechanism is one of the two main hypotheses to explain the navigability of animals in weak magnetic fields, enabling e.g. birds to see the Earth's magnetic field. It also plays an essential role in the field of spin chemistry. Here, we show how quantum control can be used to either enhance or reduce the performance of such a chemical compass, providing a new route to further study the radical pair mechanism and its applications. We study the role of quantum entanglement in this mechanism, and demonstrate intriguing connections between radical-pair entanglement and the magnetic field sensitivity of the compass. Beyond their immediate application to the radical pair mechanism, these results also demonstrate how state-of-the-art quantum technologies could potentially be used to probe and control biological functions.