PD Dr. Michael Thorwart: "Are there nontrivial quantum effects in biological systems?"

Are there nontrivial quantum effects in biological systems?

Biomolecules and their chemistry are certainly governed by the laws of elementary quantum mechanics. Nevertheless, chemists and biologists may not think of chemistry
as very "quantum mechanical". Instead, more puzzling quantum features, such as distant quantum entanglement or globally quantum coherent behavior, do not seemto be relevant. In this talk, the question, whether such "strongly" quantum mechanical features of Nature could play a nontrivial role in biomolecular systems, will be discussed. The discussion is inspired by recent results on artificial macroscopic quantum systems on the basis of nanoscale solid-state devices, which serve as buildingblocks for macroscopic quantum information processing.