Seminar @ DF-TS - Dr. A. Olaya-Castro - Friday September 13th - Quantum effects in vibration-mediated exciton transport

[Rosita Glavina]

  We are pleased to announce the seminar @ DF-Theoretical Section UniTs:

--------------------------------------

Dr. Alexandra Olaya-Castro

Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, UK
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucapaol/

"Quantum effects in vibration-mediated exciton transport"

Friday September 13th - 11.30 am
Stasi Seminar Room - LB, 1st floor

ABSTRACT
The recent experimental observation of coherent electronic dynamics in 
the antennae proteins that harvest sunlight in a variety of 
photosynthetic organisms have generated a widespread interest in 
understanding three important issues: (i) the physical principles 
underlying such coherent dynamics, (ii) whether these dynamical effects 
can enhance the device performance of biomolecular systems and (iii) 
whether they will manifest in conditions of biological relevance. Most 
recent theoretical and experimental evidence is indicating that the root 
of such oscillatory behaviour is an intertwined electronic and 
vibrational dynamics whereby a few specific coherent vibrational motions 
mediate excitation energy transfer. In this scenario it is then unclear 
whether the manifested coherent behaviour deviates from classical 
oscillator coherence. In this talk, I will discuss signatures of 
non-classical behaviour in a prototype light-harvesting system where 
slow-dephasing intramolecular motions mediate energy transfer and I will 
discuss the possible broad implications of our results for the field of 
quantum effects in biology [1].

[1] E. J. O’Reilly and A. Olaya-Castro (2013) “Non-classicality of 
molecular vibrations activating electronic dynamics at room temperature” 
arXiv: 1301.6970