Consistent Treatment of Spin-Selective Recombination of a Radical Pair Confirms the Haberkorn Approach

Abstract

In the present work, we have shown that consistent derivation of the kinetic equations describing the electron spin-selective recombination of radical pairs confirms the conventional Haberkorn approach. The derivation has been based on considering the interaction of the reactive system (radical pair and product state) with the thermal bath. The consistency of this approach has also been substantiated by numerical simulations performed for the purely quantum mechanical model of the recombining radical pair. Finally, we have shown that the quantum Zeno effect on radical pair recombination is not an exclusive feature of the approach recently proposed by Kominis, as it should be present at any rate of the singlet-triplet dephasing in the radical pair, which always accompanies the recombination process.