English

Incoherent Control of the Retinal Isomerization in Rhodopsin

Quantum Physics 2014-08-06 v2 Soft Condensed Matter Biological Physics

Abstract

We propose to control the retinal photoisomerization yield through the back-action dynamics imparted by a nonselective optical measurement of the molecular electronic state. This incoherent effect is easier to implement than comparable coherent pulse shaping techniques, and is also robust to environmental noise. A numerical simulation of the quantum dynamics shows that the isomerization yield of this important biomolecule can be substantially increased above the natural limit.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1403.3203,
  title  = {Incoherent Control of the Retinal Isomerization in Rhodopsin},
  author = {Felix Lucas and Klaus Hornberger},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1403.3203},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

5 pages, 3 figures