Prof. Martin Plenio (Universitaet Ulm):

Describing system environment interactions in the non-perturbative regime

Recent experiments have provided strong evidence
for the existence of quantum coherence in the early stages of
photosynthesis. Subsequent theory work shows that the optimal
operating regime lies in the regime where the system-environment
interaction is strong so that the system is neither fully quantum
coherent nor fully classical, but rather half way in between. In this
regime perturbative treatments of the system environment interaction
are not valid. Here I discuss the above issue and then present a novel
approach to the numerical and analytical study of spin systems in
strong contact with environments made up of harmonic oscillators.

This talk is based on
M.B. Plenio and S.F. Huelga
“Dephasing assisted transport: Quantum networks and biomolecules”
New J. Phys. 10, 113019 (2008) and E-print arXiv:0807.4902 [quant-ph]

F. Caruso, A.W. Chin, A. Datta, S.F. Huelga and M.B. Plenio
“Highly efficient energy excitation transfer in light-harvesting complexes: The fundamental role of noise-assisted transport”
J. Chem. Phys. 131, 105106 (2009) and E-print arXiv:0901.4454 [quant-ph]

J. Prior, A.W. Chin, S.F. Huelga and M.B. Plenio
“Efficient simulation of strong system-environment interactions”
Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 050404 (2010) and E-print arXiv:1003.5503 [quant-ph]

A.W. Chin, A. Rivas, S.F. Huelga and M.B. Plenio
“Exact mapping between system-reservoir quantum models and semi-infinite discrete chains using orthogonal polynomials”
J. Math. Phys. 51, 092109 (2010) and E-print arXiv:1006.4507 [quant-ph]