Coherent chemical kinetics as quantum walks II: Radical-pair reactions in Arabidopsis thaliana

TL;DR

This paper applies a quantum-walk approach to model radical-pair reactions in Arabidopsis thaliana, revealing that reaction times are unaffected by dephasing and highlighting the limitations of classical models for population dynamics.

Contribution

It demonstrates how quantum walk metrics can be used to analyze radical-pair reactions and clarifies the conditions under which classical models suffice for reaction times.

Findings

Reaction time is independent of dephasing levels.

Strong coherent oscillations occur in population dynamics without affecting reaction time.

Classical rate equations can estimate reaction times but not population dynamics.

Abstract

We apply the quantum-walk approach recently proposed in arXiv:quant-ph-1506.04213 to a radical-pair reaction where realistic estimates for the intermediate transition rates are available. The well-known average hitting time from quantum walks can be adopted as a measure of how quickly the reaction occurs and we calculate this for varying degrees of dephasing in the radical pair. The time for the radical pair to react to a product is found to be independent of the amount of dephasing introduced, even in the limit of no dephasing where the transient population dynamics exhibit strong coherent oscillations. This can be seen to arise from the existence of a rate-limiting step in the reaction and we argue that in such examples, a purely classical model based on rate equations can be used for estimating the timescale of the reaction but not necessarily its population dynamics.