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Quantum-resource-theoretical analysis of the role of vibrational structure in photoisomerization

Siddharth Tiwary1,2,*, Giovanni Spaventa3,†, Susana F. Huelga3,‡, and Martin B. Plenio3,§

  • *Contact author: siddharthtiwary@berkeley.edu
  • †Contact author: giovanni.spaventa@uni-ulm.de
  • ‡Contact author: susana.huelga@uni-ulm.de
  • §Contact author: martin.plenio@uni-ulm.de
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Phys. Rev. A 112, 032440 – Published 29 September, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/ws4m-rt7y

Abstract

Thermodynamical systems at the nanoscale, such as single molecules interacting with highly structured vibrational environments, typically undergo nonequilibrium physical processes that lack precise microscopic descriptions. Photoisomerization is such an example, which has emerged as a platform on which to study single-molecule ultrafast photochemical processes from a quantum resource theoretic perspective. However, the upper bounds on its efficiency have only been obtained under significant simplifications that make the mathematics of the resource-theoretical treatment manageable. Here we generalize previous models for the photoisomers, while retaining the full vibrational structure, and still obtain analytical bounds on the efficiency of photoisomerization. We quantify the impact of such a vibrational structure on the optimal photoisomerization quantum yield both when the vibrational coordinate has no dynamics of its own and when we take into account the vibrational dynamics. This work serves as an example of how to bridge the gap between the abstract language of quantum resource theories and the open system formulation of nanoscale processes.

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Phys. Rev. A 112, 032440– Published 29 September, 2025
  • Received 3 March 2025
  • Accepted 26 August 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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