Correlated fluctuations in the exciton dynamics and spectroscopy of DNA

Abstract

The absorption of ultraviolet light creates excitations in DNA, which\nsubsequently start moving in the helix. Their fate is important for an\nunderstanding of photo damage, and is determined by the interplay of electronic\ncouplings between bases and the structure of the DNA environment. We model the\neffect of dynamical fluctuations in the environment and study correlation,\nwhich is present when multiple base pairs interact with the same mode in the\nenvironment. We find that the correlations strongly affect the exciton\ndynamics, and show how they are observed in the decay of the anisotropy as a\nfunction of a coherence and a population time in a non-linear optical\nexperiment.\n