Inspecting molecular aggregate quadratic vibronic coupling effects using squeezed coherent states

Abstract

We present systematic comparison of three quantum mechanical approaches describing excitation dynamics in molecular complexes using the Time-Dependent variational principle (TDVP) with three increasing sophistication trial wavefunctions (ansatze): Davydov D2 , squeezed D2 (sqD2) and a numerically exact multiple D2 (mD2) ansatz in order to characterize validity of the sqD2 ansatze. Numerical simulation of molecular aggregate absorption and fluorescence spectra with intra- and intermolecular vibrational modes, including quadratic electron-vibrational (vibronic) coupling term, which is due to vibrational frequency shift upon pigment excitation is presented. Simulated absorption and fluorescence spectra of J type molecular dimer with high frequency intramolecular vibrational modes obtained with D2 and sqD2 ansatze matches spectra of mD2 ansatz only in the single pigment model without quadratic vibronic coupling. In general, the use of mD2 ansatz is required to model accurate dimer and larger aggregate's spectra. For a J dimer aggregate coupled to a low frequency intermolecular phonon bath, absorption and fluorescence spectra are qualitatively similar using all three ansatze. The quadratic vibronic coupling term in both absorption and fluorescence spectra manifests itself as a lineshape peak amplitude redistribution, static frequency shift and an additional shift, which is temperature dependent. Overall, the squeezed D2 model does not result in considerable improvement of simulation results compared to the simplest Davydov D2 approach.