Effect of a polarizable medium on the charge-transfer states of the photosynthetic reaction center from Rhodopseudomonas viridis

Photosynthetic electron transfer is arguably the most important series of chemical transformations for life on this planet. In recent years the structure of the reaction centers (RC) from the photosynthetic bacteria Rhodopseudomonas viridis and Rhodobacter sphaeroides have been presented. On the basis of these structures, several mechanisms have been proposed to explain the primary electron-transfer event with as yet no consensus. We report here INDO/S calculations of the excited states of a model of the RC of Rps viridis in both the absence and presence of a polarizable medium.