Authors: R. Bulla, S. Tornow, and F. Anders
Journal:
Adv. Solid State Phys. 47, 69 (2008)
Electron transfer processes play a central role in many chemical and biological systems. Already the transfer of a single electron from the donor to the acceptor can be viewed as a complicated many-body problem, due to the coupling of the electron to the infinitely many environmental degrees of freedom, realized by density fluctuations of the solvent or molecular vibrations of the protein matrix. We focus on the quantum mechanical modelling of two-electron transfer processes whose dynamics is governed by the Coulomb interaction between the electrons as well as the environmental degrees of freedoms represented by a bosonic bath. We identify the regime of parameters in which concerted transfer of the two electrons occurs and discuss the influence of the Coulomb repulsion and the coupling strength to the environment on the electron transfer rate. Calculations are performed using the non-perturbative numerical renormalization group approach for both equilibrium and non-equilibrium properties.