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 non-equilibrium 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 de-coherence, which we expect e.g. for biological systems. Our results furthermore 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.Comment: Extended version, including supplementary information. 9 pages, 8 figure