Probing quantum coherence in photosynthetic energy transfer in the presence of fluctuating environment with levitons and time-dependent nonequilibrium Green functions

The first few steps of photosynthesis in light harvesting complexes involve creation of exciton at chlorosome and its transport to reaction center, where the charge separation takes place. The transport of exciton from chlorosome to reaction center is highly efficient but the role of long-lived quantum coherence towards this efficiency is highly debatable. Here we present a prototype that uses a leviton voltage pulse to map a single exciton entering Fenna-Matthews-Olson pigment complex which is mapped as coupled quantum dots with attached leads, in presence of environmental fluctuation coming from molecular dynamics simulation. Our main result includes long-lived quantum beating in population dynamics and the dependency of quantum dephasing on exciton transport efficiency in fluctuating environment using time-dependent nonequilibrium Green functions approach.