Yeast Suspensions: A Controllable Example of a Coherent Quantum Machine?

Abstract

Herbert Fröhlich suggested that coherence could be an essential attribute of the dynamics of living matter. The concept of coherence and its expansion provide one of the major roads for introducing modern physics into life sciences. In this article, we show that a system made of an ensemble of metabolically active yeast cells can be a good benchmark for the discussion of the concept of coherence, of ordered states, and of their dynamics. Moreover, it can be used for probing the potentialities of coherence in the description and prediction of the behavior of interacting systems.

Keywords:

• Coherence
• Metabolism
• Non-equilibrium systems
• Yeast cells