Vibration-induced coherence enhancement of the performance of a biological quantum heat engine

Abstract

Photosynthesis has been a long-standing research interest due to its fundamental importance. Recently, studies on photosynthesis processes also have inspired attention from a thermodynamical aspect when considering photosynthetic apparatuses as biological quantum heat engines. Quantum coherence is shown to play a crucial role in enhancing the performance of these quantum heat engines. Based on the experimentally reported structure, we propose a quantum heat engine model with a non-Markovian vibrational mode. We show that one can obtain a performance enhancement easily for a wide range of parameters in the presence of the vibrational mode. Our results provide insights into the photosynthetic processes and a design principle mimicking natural organisms.

12 pages, 6 figures