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SUMMARY:Quantum coherence and decoherence in biological complexes - Dr Mar
 tin Plenio (Imperial College\, London)
DTSTART:20090202T153000Z
DTEND:20090202T170000Z
UID:TALK15747@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:6270
DESCRIPTION:Motivated by recent experiments carrying out spectroscopy on p
 arts of photosynthetic complexes we investigate the interplay between nois
 e and quantum coherence in energy transport. Environmental noise is genera
 lly expected to hinder transport processes. We show that transport of exci
 tations across dissipative quantum networks can be enhanced by noise. At t
 he \nexample of the FMO complex we explain the underlying physical mechani
 sms behind this phenomenon. These results point towards the possibility fo
 r designing \noptimized structures for transport\, for example in artifici
 al nano-structures\, assisted by noise. On a more fundamental level I inve
 stigate how entanglement might be generated or enhanced in stationary and 
 non-stationary equlibrium systems which suggests mechanisms by which entan
 glement may arise in biological complexes.\n
LOCATION:Pippard Lecture Theatre\, Cavendish Laboratory\, Department of Ph
 ysics
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