Topology and energy transport in networks of interacting photosynthetic complexes

We address the role of topology in the energy transport process that occurs in networks of photosynthetic complexes. We take inspiration from light-harvesting networks present in purple bacteria and simulate an incoherent dissipative energy transport process on more general and abstract networks, considering both regular structures (Cayley trees and hyperbranched fractals) and randomly generated ones. We focus on the the two primary light-harvesting complexes of purple bacteria, i.e., the LH1 and LH2, and we use network-theoretical centrality measures in order to select different LH1 arrangements. We show that different choices cause significant differences in the transport efficiencies, and that for regular networks, centrality measures allow us to identify arrangements that ensure transport efficiencies which are better than those obtained with a random disposition of the complexes. The optimal arrangements strongly depend on the dissipative nature of the dynamics and on the topological properties of the networks considered, and depending on the latter, they are achieved by using global versus local centrality measures. For randomly generated networks, a random arrangement of the complexes already provides efficient transport, and this suggests the process is strong with respect to limited amount of control in the structure design and to the disorder inherent in the construction of randomly assembled structures. Finally, we compare the networks considered with the real biological networks and find that the latter have in general better performances, due to their higher connectivity, but the former with optimal arrangements can mimic the real networks' behavior for a specific range of transport parameters. These results show that the use of network-theoretical concepts can be crucial for the characterization and design of efficient artificial energy transport networks. © 2012 American Physical Society.