Full quantum dynamics of the electronic coupling between photosynthetic pigments

Abstract

From studying the time evolution of the single electron density matrix within a density functional tight-binding formalism we study in a fully atomistic picture the electronic excitation transfer between two photosynthetic pigments in real time. This time-dependent quantum dynamics is based on fully atomistic structural models of the photosynthetic pigment. We analyze the dependence of the electronic excitation transfer with distance and orientation between photosynthetic pigments. We compare the results obtained from full quantum dynamics with analytical ones, based on a two level system model were the interaction between the pigments is dipolar. We observed that even when the distance of the photosynthetic pigment is about $30$ \AA\ the deviation of the dipolarity is of about $15$ percent.