A resonance mechanism of efficient energy transfer mediated by Fenna-Matthews-Olson complex

TL;DR

This paper presents a resonance mechanism model explaining highly efficient energy transfer in the FMO complex, emphasizing the roles of exciton coherence, vibrational coupling, and Hamiltonian tuning.

Contribution

It introduces a simple analytical resonance model for energy transfer in the FMO complex, highlighting the importance of vibrational environment coupling and Hamiltonian fine-tuning.

Findings

Resonance condition enhances energy transfer efficiency.

Strong coupling to energy sink is crucial for resonance.

Vibrational environment remains unheated during transfer.

Abstract

The Wigner-Weisskopf-type model developed in [R. Alicki and F. Giraldi, J. Phys. B {\bf 44}, 154020 (2011)] is applied to the biological process of energy transfer from a large peripheral light harvesting antenna to the reaction center. This process is mediated by the Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) photosynthetic complex with a remarkably high efficiency. The proposed model provides a simple resonance mechanism of this phenomenon employing exciton coherent motion and described by analytical formulas. A coupling to the vibrational environment is a necessary component of this mechanism as well as a fine tuning of the FMO complex Hamiltonian. The role of the relatively strong coupling to the energy sink in achieving the resonance condition and the absence of heating of the vibrational environment are emphasized.