1208.2558 (Zachary B. Walters)
Zachary B. Walters
The ability of migratory birds to orient relative to the Earth's magnetic field is believed to involve a coherent superposition of two spin states of a radical electron pair. However, the mechanism by which this coherence can be maintained in the face of strong interactions with the cellular environment has remained unclear. This Letter addresses the problem of decoherence between two electron spins due to hyperfine interaction with a bath of spin 1/2 nuclei. Conditions necessary for long lived coherence are identified, and a simple yet robust model for sensing magnetic field orientation is presented.
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http://arxiv.org/abs/1208.2558
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