Coherent exciton transport in dendrimers and continuous-time quantum walks

We model coherent exciton transport in dendrimers by continuous-time quantum walks (CTQWs). For dendrimers up to the second generation the coherent transport shows perfect recurrences, when the initial excitation starts at the central node. For larger dendrimers, the recurrence ceases to be perfect, a fact which resembles results for discrete quantum carpets. Moreover, depending on the initial excitation site we find that the coherent transport to certain nodes of the dendrimer has a very low probability. When the initial excitation starts from the central node, the problem can be mapped onto a line which simplifies the computational effort. Furthermore, the long time average of the quantum mechanical transition probabilities between pairs of nodes show characteristic patterns and allow to classify the nodes into clusters with identical limiting probabilities. For the (space) average of the quantum mechanical probability to be still or again at the initial site, we obtain, based on the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, a simple lower bound which depends only on the eigenvalue spectrum of the Hamiltonian.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in J. Chem. Phy

Slow Encounters of Particle Pairs in Branched Structures

On infinite homogeneous structures, two random walkers meet with certainty if and only if the structure is recurrent, i.e., a single random walker returns to its starting point with probability 1. However, on general inhomogeneous structures this property does not hold and, although a single random walker will certainly return to its starting point, two moving particles may never meet. This striking property has been shown to hold, for instance, on infinite combs. Due to the huge variety of natural phenomena which can be modeled in terms of encounters between two (or more) particles diffusing in comb-like structures, it is fundamental to investigate if and, if so, to what extent similar effects may take place in finite structures. By means of numerical simulations we evidence that, indeed, even on finite structures, the topological inhomogeneity can qualitatively affect the two-particle problem. In particular, the mean encounter time can be polynomially larger than the time expected from the related one particle problem.Comment: 8 pages, 12 figures; accepted for publication in Physical Review