A new model for magnetoreception
Biological Physics
2012-03-12 v3 Other Quantitative Biology
Quantum Physics
Abstract
Certain migratory birds can sense the earth's magnetic field. The nature of this process is not yet properly understood. Here we offer a simple explanation according to which birds literally `see' the local magnetic field: Our model relates the well-established radical pair hypothesis to the phenomenon of Haidinger's brush, a capacity to see the polarisation of light. This new picture explains recent surprising experimental data indicating long lifetimes for the radical pair. Moreover there is a clear evolutionary path toward this field sensing mechanism: it is an enhancement of a weak effect that may be present in many species.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1003.2628,
title = {A new model for magnetoreception},
author = {A. Marshall Stoneham and Erik M Gauger and Kyriakos Porfyrakis and Simon C. Benjamin and Brendon W. Lovett},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1003.2628},
year = {2012}
}
Comments
8 pages, 5 figures, version of final published paper