Quantum Matter Seminar

"It is by avoiding the rapid decay into the inert state of equilibrium that an organism appears so enigmatic," wrote Schrodinger, "What an organism feeds upon is negative entropy." On Earth, photosynthesis harvests energy from the environment, while metabolism exports entropy. Remarkably, some biological mechanisms work near the limits of efficiency, yet it remains unknown whether there exist fundamental organizing principles that give rise to such robust bioenergetics. It is no wonder then that the bioenergetic processes of cells (and photosynthesis, in particular) have been the subject of such rigorous study across many disciplines. In this talk, I present a quantum physicist's perspective on photosynthesis and metabolism in cells. I describe two new paradigms, one theoretical and one experimental, that attempt to unravel highly efficient light energy harvesting in photosynthesis [Science 368, 1490 (2020)] and anomalously rapid cellular metabolism under infrared excitation, respectively. The work described in this talk - which is motivated by the search for quantum design principles in the bioenergetics of life - promises to advance various disciplines ranging from quantum nanoscience and computing to bionanoscience and exoplanetary astrobiology.