Role of Pigment-Protein Coupling in the Energy Transport Dynamics in the Fenna-Matthews-Olson Complex

The role of pigment-protein coupling in the dynamics of photosynthetic energy transport in chromophoric complexes has not been fully understood. The excitation energy transfer in the photosynthetic system is tremendously efficient. In particular, we investigate the excitation energy transport in the Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) complex. The exciton dynamics and excitation energy transfer (EET) depend on the interaction between the excited chromophores and their environment. Most theoretical models believe that all bacteriochlorophyll-a (BChla) sites are surrounded by the same local protein environment, which is contradicted by the structural analysis of the FMO complex. Based on different values of pigment-protein coupling for different sites, measured in the adiabatic limit, we have theoretically investigated the effect of the heterogeneous local protein environment on the EET process. By the realistic and site-dependent model of the system-bath couplings, the results show that this interaction may have a critical value for the coherent energy-transfer process. Furthermore, we verify that the two transport pathways are coherent and stable to the important parameter reorganization energy of environmental interactions. The quantum dynamical simulations show that the correlation fluctuation keeps the oscillation of the coherent excitation on a long timescale. In addition, due to the inhomogeneous pigment-protein coupling, different BChl sites have asymmetric excitation oscillation timescales.

Automated summary

This study investigates the impact of pigment-protein coupling on the dynamics of photosynthetic energy transport in chromophoric complexes, revealing that the heterogeneous local protein environment affects the excitation energy transfer process and leads to asymmetric excitation oscillation timescales at different pigment sites. The results suggest that the interaction between excited chromophores and their environment plays a critical role in coherent energy-transfer processes, with quantum dynamical simulations showing sustained oscillations of coherent excitation on a long timescale.