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INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE
OF BIOPHYSICS
Photon
Sucking and the Basis of Biological Organization
Fritz-Albert Popp and Jiin-Ju Chang
Summary
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Photon sucking may explain a variety of experimental results of biophoton
emission which do not find an explanation in terms of ordinary photo-biochemistry,
i.e.synchroneous flickering of fireflies and of other bioluminescent systems
including even cells, the qualitatively different delayed luminescence
of normal and tumor cells, the interference-pattern-like biophoton emission
of daphnia, the strange absorption of bacteria in their medium and other
non-linear biological effects with respect to biophoton emission.
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All these phenomena find a rather simple explanation in terms of "photon
sucking" which can be traced back to the coherence of the biophoton field,
basically understandable in terms of the Dicke theory. Since biological
systems are optically thick media, the Dicke condition is always well satisfied
as a necessary condition. In addition, the fact that the biophoton field
is far from thermal equilibrium provides a further favourable condition
for interference phenomena.
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Besides the optical thickness and the openness of the biological system,
photon sucking requires non-linear polarization at the boundaries of the
system in order to direct the reflected wave into just the opposite direction
of the incident radiation. This effect is well known from phase conjugation
effects in classical optics. The sufficient condition of non-linear polarization
at the surface of the system is a well known property of biological structures
(membranes, ensembles of biomolecules). It is worthwhile to note here that
H. Fröhlich was the first who pointed to connections between coherence
and extraordinary polarizability in biological systems [19].
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In order to allow destructive (or constructive) interference of the reflected
wave with the incoming wave, two further conditions have to be fulfilled:
(1) Instead of a polarizable mono-layer, a double layer has to represent
the boundary of the biological system. (2) The interaction time of the
external or penetrating field shall be large compared to the reciprocal
of the frequency of typical components and not too small compared to the
coherence time of the field under investigation. All these conditions favour
the known characteristics of biological systems. At the same time, we assume
that the optical activity of the double layers with an average amplification
factor 1 (no loss, no amplification) may support this mechanism.
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This process of photon sucking involves a force which may well explain
the cell-cell attraction and/or repulsion. At the same time some unknown
phenomena of phototropism and similar effects including biological rhythms
may find basic understanding, since the mechanism can work also in non-linear
classical optics.
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The organization of cells (including growth, differentiation, ...), and
the "language" may become understandable on this basis, too. This effect
can play a role not only between cells and organisms, but also within cells
and between groups of biomolecules. Specific phase- and frequency modulations
may provide the language of the system under consideration.
From the quantum theoretical point of view, photon sucking may become optimized
in the non-classical range. Minimum-uncertainty wave packets (squeezed
states) allow the most efficient interference effects of standing waves.
The well-known hyperbolic relaxation of delayed luminescence is a further
indication of the validity of this hypothesis.
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