Environment-Assisted Quantum Coherence in Photosynthetic Complex

Dutta, Rajesh and Bagchi, Biman (2017) Environment-Assisted Quantum Coherence in Photosynthetic Complex. In: JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY LETTERS, 8 (22). pp. 5566-5572.

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Abstract

Recent experiments Engel et al. Nature, 2007, 446, 782-786] revealed the existence of surprisingly long-lived quantum coherence in the noisy biological environment of the photosynthetic Fenna Matthews Olson (FMO) complex. Such coherence can clearly play an important role in facilitating efficient energy transfer. The occurrence of quantum coherence in quantum transport is also implicated in excitation transport processes in conjugated polymers Collini et al. Science, 2009, 323, 369-373]. Even though these systems are strongly correlated, most theoretical studies invoke a Markovian approximation where the temporal correlation of bath fluctuations is neglected. We use an elegant nonperturbative method based on Kubo's quantum stochastic Liouville equation (QSLE) to study the effects of correlated non-Markovian bath fluctuations in several different limits and find the interesting result that fluctuations not only destroy coherence but under appropriate conditions can also facilitate it. We show that temperature has the most pronounced effect in the intermediate coupling limit where it can promote transition from coherent to incoherent transfer.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY LETTERS
Additional Information:	Copy right for this article belongs to the AMER CHEMICAL SOC, 1155 16TH ST, NW, WASHINGTON, DC 20036 USA
Department/Centre:	Division of Chemical Sciences > Solid State & Structural Chemistry Unit
Date Deposited:	26 Dec 2017 06:02
Last Modified:	26 Dec 2017 06:02
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/58432

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