title: Dissipative vibrational model for chiral recognition in olfaction.
abstract: We examine the olfactory discrimination of left- and right-handed enantiomers of chiral odorants based on the odorant-mediated electron transport from a donor to an acceptor of the olfactory receptors embodied in a biological environment. The chiral odorant is effectively described by an asymmetric double-well potential whose minima are associated to the left- and right-handed enantiomers. The introduced asymmetry is considered an overall measure of chiral interactions. The biological environment is conveniently modeled as a bath of harmonic oscillators. The resulting spin-boson model is adapted by a polaron transformation to derive the corresponding Born-Markov master equation with which we obtain the elastic and inelastic electron tunneling rates. We show that the inelastic tunneling through left- and right-handed enantiomers occurs with different rates. The discrimination mechanism depends on the ratio of tunneling frequency to localization frequency.
authors.affiliation: Foundations of Physics Group, School of Physics, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM), P. O. Box 19395-5531, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Arash
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tirandaz
authors.affiliation: Foundations of Physics Group, School of Physics, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM), P. O. Box 19395-5531, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Farhad
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Taher Ghahramani
authors.affiliation: Foundations of Physics Group, School of Physics, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM), P. O. Box 19395-5531, Tehran, Iran.|Research Group On Foundations of Quantum Theory and Information, Department of Chemistry, Sharif University of Technology, P. O. Box 11365-9516, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Afshin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shafiee
mesh_terms: D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D004579:Electron Transport; D007536:Isomerism; D008954:Models, Biological; D009812:Odorants; D055696:Olfactory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D010507:Periodicity; D012903:Smell / Q000502:physiology; D014732:Vibration