title: Dynamic entanglement in oscillating molecules and potential biological implications.
abstract: We demonstrate that entanglement can persistently recur in an oscillating two-spin molecule that is coupled to a hot and noisy environment, in which no static entanglement can survive. The system represents a nonequilibrium quantum system which, driven through the oscillatory motion, is prevented from reaching its (separable) thermal equilibrium state. Environmental noise, together with the driven motion, plays a constructive role by periodically resetting the system, even though it will destroy entanglement as usual. As a building block, the present simple mechanism supports the perspective that entanglement can exist also in systems which are exposed to a hot environment and to high levels of decoherence, which we expect, e.g., for biological systems. Our results also suggest that entanglement plays a role in the heat exchange between molecular machines and environment. Experimental simulation of our model with trapped ions is within reach of the current state-of-the-art quantum technologies.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Innsbruck, Austria.
authors.forename: Jianming
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cai
authors.forename: Sandu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Popescu
authors.forename: Hans J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Briegel
mesh_terms: D001683:Biological Clocks; D001704:Biopolymers / Q000737:chemistry*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D008954:Models, Biological; D008956:Models, Chemical; D009991:Oscillometry / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D001704:Biopolymers