A physicochemical description of life and its emergence is one of the greatest open problems in science. Life is made of molecules described fundamentally by quantum theory. The identification of quantum effects in primitive organisms such as bacteria [1,2] has resulted in the successful application of open quantum systems models to energy and charge transfer processes in photosynthetic systems [3-5], as well as suggesting that an open quantum systems approach may contribute to an understanding of the processes by which primitive living systems emerge from the inanimate matter of which they are constituted. Improvements in observational techniques have resulted in the detection of over 150 species of organic molecules in our galaxy to date [6]. The detection of a range of molecules likely to be precursors of life in interstellar regions [7-9], suggests that the formation of the building blocks of life may be less rare than once imagined. Furthermore, a range of experiments have demonstrated the spontaneous generation of amino acids in diverse environments ranging from early Earth atmospheric analogues subjected to electric discharge [10], to interstellar ice analogues irradiated with UV light [11-13]. However, typically employed quantum chemical methods describing gas-phase phenomena cannot account for the variety of chemistry occurring in the interstellar medium (ISM), since a range of chemical processes take place on the surfaces of icy dust grains subject to incoming ultraviolet rays. Mathematical techniques from an open quantum systems approach will be useful for the theoretical study of the spontaneous generation of prebiotic molecules in the ISM, where a simple molecular system is strongly coupled to a low temperature interstellar icy environment and excited by incident UV radiation. Understanding the fundamental principles of the system-environment interaction resulting in the spontaneous formation of complex prcbiotic molecules would allow the prediction of which as yet undetected prcbiotic molecules could have formed in regions ranging from interstellar space to specific regions in our solar system, the characteristics of environments where such molecules emerge, as well as the investigation of the feasibility of new detections of specific prcbiotic molecular transitions in a given frequency range. We give an overview of an open quantum systems approach to the formation of prcbiotic molecules, a new theoretical advance, which would not be possible without ongoing ground-based observations of our galaxy, as well as flyby, sample return, robotic and potential crewed missions in our own solar system, providing data of the richness of chemistry occurring there.
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