Environment-assisted quantum transport in ordered systems

Noise-assisted transport in quantum systems occurs when quantum time evolution and decoherence conspire to produce a transport efficiency that is higher than what would be seen in either the purely quantum or purely classical cases. In disordered systems, it has been understood as the suppression of coherent quantum localization through noise, which brings detuned quantum levels into resonance and thus facilitates transport. We report several new mechanisms of environment-assisted transport in ordered systems, in which there is no localization to overcome and where one would naively expect that coherent transport is the fastest possible. Although we are particularly motivated by the need to understand excitonic energy transfer in photosynthetic light-harvesting complexes, our model is general—transport in a tight-binding system with dephasing, a source and a trap—and can be expected to have wider application. (paper)