In this paper, the effects of quantum and classical correlations on the excitation energy transfer in a three-quasi- spin-pigment system are investigated. We first study the dependence of the energy transfer efficiency on various initial correlations of the donor pigments, and find that the initial concurrence is crucial to the efficiency no matter whether the initial states are pure or mixed. We then demonstrate the dynamics of correlations of the system and observe the appearance of sudden death of quantum correlations in the donor pigments. The relation between the energy transfer efficiency and the dynamics of correlations in the donor pigments is also discussed.
The important role of high-energy intramolecular vibrational modes for excitation energy transfer in the detuned photosynthetic systems is studied. Based on a basic dimer model which consists of two two-level systems （pigments） coupled to high-energy vibrational modes, we find that the high-energy intramolecular vibrational modes can enhance the energy transfer with new coherent transfer channels being opened when the phonon energy matches the detuning between the two pigments. As a result, the energy can be effectively transferred into the acceptor. The effective Hamiltonian is obtained to reveal the strong coherent energy exchange among the donor, the acceptor, and the high-energy intramolecular. A semi-classical explanation of the phonon-assisted mechanism is also shown.
The phonon-assisted process of energy transfer aiming at exploring the newly emerging frontier between biology and physics is an issue of central interest.This article shows the important role of the intramolecular vibrational modes for excitation energy transfer in the photosynthetic systems.Based on a dimer system consisting of a donor and an acceptor modeled by two two-level systems,in which one of them is coupled to a high-energy vibrational mode,we derive an effective Hamiltonian describing the vibration-assisted coherent energy transfer process in the polaron frame.The effective Hamiltonian reveals in the case that the vibrational mode dynamically matches the energy detuning between the donor and the acceptor,the original detuned energy transfer becomes resonant energy transfer.In addition,the population dynamics and coherence dynamics of the dimer system with and without vibration-assistance are investigated numerically.It is found that,the energy transfer efficiency and the transfer time depend heavily on the interaction strength of the donor and the high-energy vibrational mode,as well as the vibrational frequency.The numerical results also indicate that the initial state and dissipation rate of the vibrational mode have little influence on the dynamics of the dimer system.Results obtained in this article are not only helpful to understand the natural photosynthesis,but also offer an optimal design principle for artificial photosynthesis.
Energy transfer processes between two aggregates in a coupled chromophoric-pigment （protein） system are studied via the standard master equation approach. Each pigment of the two aggregates is modeled as a two-level system. The excitation energy is assumed to be transferred from the donor aggregate to the acceptor aggregate. The model can be used to theoretically simulate many aspects of light-harvesting complexes （LHCs）. By applying the real bio-parameters of photosynthesis, we numerically investigate the efficiency of energy transfer （EET） between the two aggregates in terms of some factors, e.g., the initial coherence of the donor aggregate, the coupling strengthes between the two aggregates and between different pigments, and the effects of noise from the environment. Our results provide evidence for that the actual numbers of pigments in the chromophoric tings of LHCs should be the optimum parameters for a high EET. We also give a detailed analysis of the effects of noise on the EET.
