ArticleScience advances2025
Full microscopic simulations uncover persistent quantum effects in primary photosynthesis.
Article in Science advances, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- TENSO: Software Package for Numerically Exact Open Quantum Dynamics Based on Efficient Tree Tensor Network Decomposition of the Hierarchical Equations of Motion.Journal of chemical theory and computation · 2026Article
- Controlled assembly of two-dimensional porphyrin heterostructures toward directed energy transfer and charge separation.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Simulating electron transfer on noisy quantum computers.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Quantum biology: From mechanisms to medicine.Clinical and translational medicine · 2026Review
- Quantum simulation of charge and exciton transfer in multi-mode models using engineered reservoirs.Nature communications · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
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Abstract
The presence of quantum effects in photosynthetic excitation energy transfer has been intensely debated over the past decade. Nonlinear spectroscopy cannot unambiguously distinguish coherent electronic dynamics from underdamped vibrational motion, and rigorous numerical simulations of realistic microscopic models have been intractable. Experimental studies supported by approximate numerical treatments that severely coarse-grain the vibrational environment have claimed the absence of long-lived quantum effects. Here, we report the nonperturbative, accurate microscopic model simulations of the Fenna-Matthews-Olson photosynthetic complex and demonstrate the presence of long-lived excitonic coherences at [Formula: see text] and room temperature, which persist on picosecond timescales, similar to those of excitation energy transfer. Furthermore, we show that full microscopic simulations of nonlinear optical spectra are essential for identifying experimental evidence of quantum effects in photosynthesis, as approximate theoretical methods can misinterpret experimental data and potentially overlook quantum phenomena.
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