Dissipative vibrational model for chiral recognition in olfaction

Arash Tirandaz, Farhad Taher Ghahramani, and Afshin Shafiee
Phys. Rev. E 92, 032724 – Published 24 September 2015

Abstract

We examine the olfactory discrimination of left- and right-handed enantiomers of chiral odorants based on the odorant-mediated electron transport from a donor to an acceptor of the olfactory receptors embodied in a biological environment. The chiral odorant is effectively described by an asymmetric double-well potential whose minima are associated to the left- and right-handed enantiomers. The introduced asymmetry is considered an overall measure of chiral interactions. The biological environment is conveniently modeled as a bath of harmonic oscillators. The resulting spin-boson model is adapted by a polaron transformation to derive the corresponding Born-Markov master equation with which we obtain the elastic and inelastic electron tunneling rates. We show that the inelastic tunneling through left- and right-handed enantiomers occurs with different rates. The discrimination mechanism depends on the ratio of tunneling frequency to localization frequency.

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  • Received 2 July 2015
  • Revised 29 August 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.92.032724

©2015 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Arash Tirandaz1,*, Farhad Taher Ghahramani1,†, and Afshin Shafiee1,2,‡

  • 1Foundations of Physics Group, School of Physics, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM), P. O. Box 19395-5531, Tehran, Iran
  • 2Research Group On Foundations of Quantum Theory and Information, Department of Chemistry, Sharif University of Technology, P. O. Box 11365-9516, Tehran, Iran

  • *arash85201@ipm.ir
  • farhadtqm@ipm.ir
  • shafiee@sharif.edu

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Issue

Vol. 92, Iss. 3 — September 2015

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