Ising quantum chain and sequence evolution (Q1806419)

Sequence space models seek to describe biological evolution at the molecular level through mutation and selection. Well-known ones are Kauffman's adaptive walk [\textit{S.A. Kauffman}, The origin of order. (1993)] and Eigen's quasispecies model [\textit{M. Eigen} et al., Adv. Chem. Phys. 75, 149 ff (1989)]. Whereas the former describes a hill-climbing process of a genetically homogeneous population in tunably rugged fitness landscapes (where the fitness values are considered as a mountain range over sequence space), the latter includes the genetic structure of the population due to the balance between mutation and selection. For equal fitness landscapes, the quasispecies model is thus more difficult to treat than the corresponding adaptive walk. In this article we will work out that, in the same way as the quasispecies model is equivalent to the row transfer matrix of a 2D Ising model, the parallel mutation-selection model corresponds to the Hamiltonian of an Ising quantum chain. Observable quantities, tailored to match the biological situation, will then be employed to treat three simple fitness landscapes exactly (more biological implications will be dealt with elsewhere). But let us first elaborate on the evolution model and its connection to Ising quantum chains.