Nonperturbative theory for the optical response to strong light of the light harvesting complex II of plants: Saturation of the fluorescence quantum yield

Equation-of-Motion Methods for the Calculation of Femtosecond Time-Resolved 4-Wave-Mixing and N-Wave-Mixing Signals

Femtosecond nonlinear spectroscopy is the main tool for the time-resolved detection of photophysical and photochemical processes. Since most systems of chemical interest are rather complex, theoretical support is indispensable for the extraction of the intrinsic system dynamics from the detected spectroscopic responses. There exist two alternative theoretical formalisms for the calculation of spectroscopic signals, the nonlinear response-function (NRF) approach and the spectroscopic equation-of-motion (EOM) approach. In the NRF formalism, the system-field interaction is assumed to be sufficiently weak and is treated in lowest-order perturbation theory for each laser pulse interacting with the sample. The conceptual alternative to the NRF method is the extraction of the spectroscopic signals from the solutions of quantum mechanical, semiclassical, or quasiclassical EOMs which govern the time evolution of the material system interacting with the radiation field of the laser pulses. The NRF formalism and its applications to a broad range of material systems and spectroscopic signals have been comprehensively reviewed in the literature. This article provides a detailed review of the suite of EOM methods, including applications to 4-wave-mixing and N-wave-mixing signals detected with weak or strong fields. Under certain circumstances, the spectroscopic EOM methods may be more efficient than the NRF method for the computation of various nonlinear spectroscopic signals.

PsiQuaSP-A library for efficient computation of symmetric open quantum systems

In a recent publication we showed that permutation symmetry reduces the numerical complexity of Lindblad quantum master equations for identical multi-level systems from exponential to polynomial scaling. This is important for open system dynamics including realistic system bath interactions and dephasing in, for instance, the Dicke model, multi-Λ system setups etc. Here we present an object-oriented C++ library that allows to setup and solve arbitrary quantum optical Lindblad master equations, especially those that are permutationally symmetric in the multi-level systems. PsiQuaSP (Permutation symmetry for identical Quantum Systems Package) uses the PETSc package for sparse linear algebra methods and differential equations as basis. The aim of PsiQuaSP is to provide flexible, storage efficient and scalable code while being as user friendly as possible. It is easily applied to many quantum optical or quantum information systems with more than one multi-level system. We first review the basics of the permutation symmetry for multi-level systems in quantum master equations. The application of PsiQuaSP to quantum dynamical problems is illustrated with several typical, simple examples of open quantum optical systems.

Strong-pump strong-probe spectroscopy: effects of higher excited electronic states

The present paper is devoted to the simulation of (integral and dispersed) pump-probe signals in the nonperturbative regime for a series of material systems with multiple electronic states and excited-state absorption. We show that strong-pump strong-probe spectroscopy permits the probing of vibrational wavepackets in high-lying and/or short-lived excited electronic states with a time resolution which is not limited by the pulse durations. The field strength can be regarded as an additional experimentally controllable parameter, which can be tuned to maximize the spectroscopic information for a given material system.

Functional domain size in aggregates of light-harvesting complex II and thylakoid membranes

The functional domain size for efficient excited singlet state quenching was studied in artificial aggregates of the main light-harvesting complex II (LHCIIb) from spinach and in native thylakoid membranes by picosecond time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy and quantum yield measurements. The domain size was estimated from the efficiency of added exogenous singlet excitation quenchers-phenyl-p-benzoquinone (PPQ) and dinitrobenzene (DNB). The mean fluorescence lifetimes τ(av) were quantified for a range of quencher concentrations. Applying the Stern-Volmer formalism, apparent quenching rate constants k(q) were determined from the dependencies on quencher concentration of the ratio τ(0)(av)/τ(av), where τ(0)(av) is the average fluorescence lifetime of the sample without addition of an exogenous quencher. The functional domain size was gathered from the ratio k(q)'/k(q), i.e., the apparent quenching rate constants determined in aggregates (or membranes), k(q)', and in detergent-solubilised LHCII trimers, k(q), respectively. In LHCII macroaggregates, the resulting values for the domain size were 15-30 LHCII trimers. In native thylakoid membranes the domain size was equivalent to 12-24 LHCII trimers, corresponding to 500-1000 chlorophylls. Virtually the same results were obtained when membranes were suspended in buffers promoting either membrane stacking or destacking. These domain sizes are orders of magnitude smaller than the number of physically connected pigment-protein complexes. Therefore our results imply that the physical size of an antenna system beyond the numbers of a functional domain size has little or no effect on improving the light-harvesting efficiency.

Optical N-wave-mixing spectroscopy with strong and temporally well-separated pulses: the doorway-window representation

We have extended the doorway-window representation of optical pump-probe spectroscopy with weak pulses toward N-wave-mixing spectroscopy with temporally well-separated pulses of arbitrary strength. The expressions for the signals in the strong-pulse doorway-window representation are derived in the framework of the nonperturbative theory of N-wave-mixing spectroscopy. The strong-pulse doorway-window representation is complementary to the equation-of-motion phase-matching approach. The latter fully accounts for pulse-overlap effects in signals induced by weak pulses but is computationally more expensive. The performance of the doorway-window approximation for temporally well-separated strong pulses is illustrated for an electronic two-level system with an underdamped Condon-active vibrational mode.

Strong and Long Makes Short: Strong-Pump Strong-Probe Spectroscopy

We propose a new time-domain spectroscopic technique that is based on strong pump and probe pulses. The strong-pump strong-probe (SPSP) technique provides temporal resolution that is not limited by the durations of the pump and probe pulses. By numerically exact simulations of SPSP signals for a multilevel vibronic model, we show that the SPSP signals exhibit electronic and vibrational beatings on time scales which are significantly shorter than the pulse durations. This suggests the possible application of SPSP spectroscopy for the real-time investigation of molecular processes that cannot be temporally resolved by pump-probe spectroscopy with weak pump and probe pulses.

A Bloch equation approach to intensity dependent optical spectra of light harvesting complex II: excitation dependence of light harvesting complex II pump-probe spectra

On the basis of the recent progress in the resolution of the structure of the antenna light harvesting complex II (LHC II) of the photosystem II, we propose a microscopically motivated theory to predict excitation intensity-dependent spectra. We show that optical Bloch equations provide the means to include all 2( N ) excited states of an oligomer complex of N coupled two-level systems and analyze the effects of Pauli Blocking and exciton-exciton annihilation on pump-probe spectra. We use LHC Bloch equations for 14 Coulomb coupled two-level systems, which describe the S (0) and S (1) level of every chlorophyll molecule. All parameter introduced into the Hamiltonian are based on microscopic structure and a quantum chemical model. The derived Bloch equations describe not only linear absorption but also the intensity dependence of optical spectra in a regime where the interplay of Pauli Blocking effects as well as exciton-exciton annihilation effects are important. As an example, pump-probe spectra are discussed. The observed saturation of the spectra for high intensities can be viewed as a relaxation channel blockade on short time scales due to Pauli blocking. The theoretical investigation is useful for the interpretation of the experimental data, if the experimental conditions exceed the low intensity pump limit and effects like strong Pauli Blocking and exciton-exciton annihilation need to be considered. These effects become important when multiple excitations are generated by the pump pulse in the complex.