English

Proposal for verifying dipole properties of light-harvesting antennas

Biological Physics 2018-01-25 v4 Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics Biomolecules Quantum Physics

Abstract

For light harvesters with a reaction center complex (LH1-RC complex) of three types, we propose an experiment to verify our analysis based upon antenna theories that automatically include the required structural information. Our analysis conforms to the current understanding of light-harvesting antennae in that we can explain known properties of these complexes. We provide an explanation for the functional roles of the notch at the light harvester, a functional role of the polypeptide called PufX or W at the opening, a functional role of the special pair, a reason that the cross section of the light harvester must not be circular, a reason that the light harvester must not be spherical, reasons for the use of dielectric bacteriochlorophylls instead of conductors to make the light harvester, a mechanism to prevent damage from excess sunlight, an advantage of the dimeric form, and reasons for the modular design of nature. Based upon our analysis we provide a mechanism for dimerization. We predict the dimeric form of light-harvesting complexes is favoured under intense sunlight. We further comment upon the classification of the dimeric or S-shape complexes. The S-shape complexes should not be considered as the third type of light harvester but simply as a composite form.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1710.05529,
  title  = {Proposal for verifying dipole properties of light-harvesting antennas},
  author = {Julian Juhi-Lian Ting},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1710.05529},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

12 pages, 3 figures