title: Microscopic quantum coherence in a photosynthetic-light-harvesting antenna.
abstract: We briefly review the coherent quantum beats observed in recent two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy experiments in a photosynthetic-light-harvesting antenna. We emphasize that the decay of the quantum beats in these experiments is limited by ensemble averaging. The in vivo dynamics of energy transport depends upon the local fluctuations of a single photosynthetic complex during the energy transfer time (a few picoseconds). Recent analyses suggest that it remains possible that the quantum-coherent motion may be robust under individual realizations of the environment-induced fluctuations contrary to intuition obtained from condensed phase spectroscopic measurements and reduced density matrices. This result indicates that the decay of the observed quantum coherence can be understood as ensemble dephasing. We propose a fluorescence-detected single-molecule experiment with phase-locked excitation pulses to investigate the coherent dynamics at the level of a single molecule without hindrance by ensemble averaging. We discuss the advantages and limitations of this method. We report our initial results on bulk fluorescence-detected coherent spectroscopy of the Fenna-Mathews-Olson complex.
authors: Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
authors: Jahan M
authors: JM
authors: Dawlaty
authors: Akihito
authors: A
authors: Ishizaki
authors: Arijit K
authors: AK
authors: De
authors: Graham R
authors: GR
authors: Fleming
mesh_terms: D004735:Energy Transfer / Q000502:physiology* / Q000528:radiation effects; D008027:Light; D045342:Light-Harvesting Protein Complexes / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000502:physiology* / Q000528:radiation effects; D008954:Models, Biological; D008956:Models, Chemical; D010788:Photosynthesis / Q000502:physiology* / Q000528:radiation effects; D011789:Quantum Theory
chemical_list: D045342:Light-Harvesting Protein Complexes