Coherent and incoherent theories for photosynthetic energy transfer

Abstract

There is a remarkable characteristic of photosynthesis in nature, that is, the energy transfer efficiency is close to 100%. Recently, due to the rapid progress made in the experimental techniques, quantum coherent effects have been experimentally demonstrated. Traditionally, the incoherent theories are capable of calculating the energy transfer efficiency, e.g., (generalized) Förster theory and modified Redfield theory. However, in order to describe the quantum coherent effects in photosynthesis, the coherent theories have been developed, such as hierarchical equation of motion, quantum path integral, coherent modified Redfield theory, small-polaron quantum master equation, and general Bloch-Redfield theory in addition to the Redfield theory. Here, we summarize the main points of the above approaches, which might be beneficial to the quantum simulation of quantum dynamics of exciton energy transfer in natural photosynthesis, and shed light on the design of artificial light-harvesting devices.

Quantum simulation of clustered photosynthetic light harvesting in a superconducting quantum circuit

“…In Reference 37, the NMR experimental simulation was compared with the numerically exact simulation using the hierarchical equation of motion (HEOM). 26,78 Here, in our configuration, there are two TLRs in addition to 4 qubits. The presence of extra modes in the TLRs results in the increasing complexity of the quantum master equation, which can be solved by using QuTiP, 79,80 as compared with the HEOM for four chlorophylls.…”

Quantum Biology: An Update and Perspective

“…Many systems appear to occupy an intermediate regime that is not captured well by theories describing either extreme of coupling strength [131]. Modified versions of these models have been built to account for several important phenomena seen during experimental observations [132][133][134]. For specific mathematical models of the bath surrounding the chromophores, the problem has been solved exactly by Ishizaki and Tanimura using hierarchical equations of motion [135,136].…”

Optical nonreciprocity in rotating diamond with nitrogen-vacancy center

“…where ∆ a = ω a − ω p represents the detuning of cavity mode and probe laser, ∆ p = ω 3 − ω 1 − ω p is the detuning of probe laser and the transition |1 ↔ |3 , and ∆ c = ω 3 − ω 2 − ω c is the detuning of the control laser and the transition |2 ↔ |3 . Among the methods for open quantum systems [54][55][56], the Heisenberg-Langevin approach can faithfully reproduce the quantum dynamics. Especially, it can significantly reduce the complexity of calculation as compared to the widely-used quantum master equation [57,58] and numerically-exact hierarchical equation of motion [59][60][61], when the system under investigation contains bosons and the number of operators of interest is small.…”