Quantum information scrambling and chemical reactions

dc.citation.articleNumbere2321668121
dc.citation.issueNumber15
dc.citation.journalTitleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
dc.citation.volumeNumber121
dc.contributor.authorZhang, Chenghao
dc.contributor.authorKundu, Sohang
dc.contributor.authorMakri, Nancy
dc.contributor.authorGruebele, Martin
dc.contributor.authorWolynes, Peter G.
dc.contributor.orgCenter for Theoretical Biological Physics
dc.date.accessioned2024-07-25T20:55:19Z
dc.date.available2024-07-25T20:55:19Z
dc.date.issued2024
dc.description.abstractThe ultimate regularity of quantum mechanics creates a tension with the assumption of classical chaos used in many of our pictures of chemical reaction dynamics. Out-of-time-order correlators (OTOCs) provide a quantum analog to the Lyapunov exponents that characterize classical chaotic motion. Maldacena, Shenker, and Stanford have suggested a fundamental quantum bound for the rate of information scrambling, which resembles a limit suggested by Herzfeld for chemical reaction rates. Here, we use OTOCs to study model reactions based on a double-well reaction coordinate coupled to anharmonic oscillators or to a continuum oscillator bath. Upon cooling, as one enters the tunneling regime where the reaction rate does not strongly depend on temperature, the quantum Lyapunov exponent can approach the scrambling bound and the effective reaction rate obtained from a population correlation function can approach the Herzfeld limit on reaction rates: Tunneling increases scrambling by expanding the state space available to the system. The coupling of a dissipative continuum bath to the reaction coordinate reduces the scrambling rate obtained from the early-time OTOC, thus making the scrambling bound harder to reach, in the same way that friction is known to lower the temperature at which thermally activated barrier crossing goes over to the low-temperature activationless tunneling regime. Thus, chemical reactions entering the tunneling regime can be information scramblers as powerful as the black holes to which the quantum Lyapunov exponent bound has usually been applied.
dc.identifier.citationZhang, C., Kundu, S., Makri, N., Gruebele, M., & Wolynes, P. G. (2024). Quantum information scrambling and chemical reactions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(15), e2321668121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2321668121
dc.identifier.digitalzhang-et-al-2024
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2321668121
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/117530
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherNational Academy of Sciences
dc.rightsExcept where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license.  Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the terms of the license or beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
dc.titleQuantum information scrambling and chemical reactions
dc.typeJournal article
dc.type.dcmiText
dc.type.publicationpublisher version
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