Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 227, 2349–2360 (2019)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2018-800059-9

Regular Article

Multiscale cyclic dynamics in light harvesting complex in presence of vibrations and noise

¹ Department of Particle Physics and Astrophysics, Weizmann Institute, 76100 Rehovot, Israel
² Center for Nonlinear Studies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA
³ Theoretical Division, T-4, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA
⁴ New Mexico Consortium, Los Alamos, NM 87544, USA

^a e-mail: shmuel.gurvitz@weizmann.ac.il

Received: 15 April 2018
Received in final form: 5 July 2018
Published online: 18 January 2019

Abstract

Starting from the many-body Schrödinger equation, we derive a new type of Lindblad master equations describing a cyclic exciton/electron dynamics in the light harvesting complex and the reaction center. These equations resemble the master equations for the electric current in mesoscopic systems, and they go beyond the single-exciton description by accounting for the multi-exciton states accumulated in the antenna, as well as the charge-separation, fluorescence and photo-absorption. Although these effects take place on very different timescales, their inclusion is necessary for a consistent description of the exciton dynamics. Our approach reproduces both coherent and incoherent dynamics of exciton motion along the antenna in the presence of vibrational modes and noise. We applied our results to evaluate energy (exciton) and fluorescent currents as functions of sunlight intensity.