Struttura della materia

On the ubiquity and functional role of quantum entanglement: from biomolecular charge transfer to cavity QED.

by Migliore Agostino (Dip. di Chimica, Università di Padova)

Europe/Rome
Aula Conversi (Dip. di Fisica . Edificio G. Marconi)

Aula Conversi

Dip. di Fisica . Edificio G. Marconi

Description

Growing experimental evidence suggests that quantum coherence can survive disorder and noise enough to play a role in a variety of biological and chemical systems. While the actual duration and function of coherence are still debated in many cases, it is generally recognized that entangled quantum states emerge at crucial stages of processes ranging from charge transfer in biomolecular complexes to purely quantum phenomena in cavity QED. The first part of this talk focuses on our developments in electron transfer theory and computation, with emphasis on the occurrence of entangled electronic states at the core of two-state charge-transfer reactions and the functional significance of the Rabi oscillation between such states. The second part of the talk will describe how the evolution of an atom or a molecule behaving as a two-level system coupled to a cavity radiation field can strongly depend on the parity of the photon number, which determines the ability of the system to establish an approximate Rabi oscillation between entangled field-atom states. Using the concept of quantum mutual entropy, with an eye to potential applications in information transfer, signaling and quantum computing, we will show that, in both types of physical situations, the quantum correlations associated with the entanglement of the system components are maximal in intermediate stages of the dynamics in which the observable system evolution slows down.

Organised by

G. Ruocco