Robust Excitonic Energy Transport in Photosynthetic FMO-Like Systems Emerges from a Finite High-Performance Parameter Region

Robust Excitonic Energy Transport in Photosynthetic FMO-Like Systems Emerges from a Finite High-Performance Parameter Region | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Robust Excitonic Energy Transport in Photosynthetic FMO-Like Systems Emerges from a Finite High-Performance Parameter Region Connor Brown This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8844779/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract The functional role of quantum coherence in photosynthetic energy transport remains actively debated, with prior studies alternately attributing enhanced efficiency to coherent dynamics, environmental noise, or predominantly incoherent mechanisms. A key limitation of existing work is its focus on individual Hamiltonians or narrowly tuned parameter regimes rather than the global structure of physically accessible parameter space. Here, we perform a large-scale computational landscape analysis of excitonic transport in Fenna–Matthews–Olson (FMO)-like systems by systematically sampling thousands of Hamiltonians with structured perturbations to site energies, inter-site couplings, and environmental interaction strengths. Using an open quantum systems framework, we jointly quantify transport efficiency, mean first-passage time, and integrated quantum coherence across the sampled ensemble. We find that coherence is sparse and highly heterogeneous, while transport efficiency is dominated by a low-performance regime with a long high-efficiency tail. No universal or monotonic relationship emerges between coherence and either efficiency or transport speed. Instead, efficient transport occupies a finite, contiguous high-performance region in parameter space spanning a range of coherence values and kinetic behaviors, indicating that optimal transport does not require maximal coherence or fine tuning. These results establish quantum coherence as a context-dependent dynamical resource and demonstrate that robust excitonic transport arises from the geometry of the Hamiltonian landscape rather than isolated optimal configurations. More broadly, this landscape-level perspective provides a unifying framework for interpreting conflicting observations in the literature and for understanding how functional quantum effects can persist in complex open quantum systems. Biophysics Quantum Coherence Fenna-Matthews-Olson systems Open quantum systems framework Full Text Additional Declarations The authors declare no competing interests. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. 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