Targeted Energy Transfer Dynamics and Chemical Reactions.

Ultrafast reaction processes take place when resonant features of nonlinear model systems are taken into account. In the targeted energy or electron transfer dimer model this is accomplished through the implementation of nonlinear oscillators with opposing types of nonlinearities, one attractive while the second repulsive. In the present work, we show that this resonant behavior survives if we take into account the vibrational degrees of freedom as well.

A nonadiabatic theory for ultrafast catalytic electron transfer: a model for the photosynthetic reaction center.

A non-adiabatic theory of Electron Transfer (ET), which improves the standard theory near the inversion point and becomes equivalent to it far from the inversion point, is presented. The complex amplitudes of the electronic wavefunctions at different sites are used as Kramers variables for describing the quantum tunneling of the electron in the deformable potential generated by its environment (nonadiabaticity) which is modeled as a harmonic classical thermal bath. After exact elimination of the bath, the effective electron dynamics is described by a discrete nonlinear Schrödinger equation with norm preserving dissipative terms and a Langevin random force, with a frequency cut-off, due to the thermalized phonons.