Förster transfer between quantum dots in a shared phonon environment: An exact approach, revealing the role of pure dephasing

Förster resonance energy transfer has an important role in nature and technology, rendering its exact theoretical understanding significant. To this end, a system of two electronically decoupled quantum dots (QDs) is considered, interacting via dipole-dipole interaction and a common phonon bath. While the former leads to an oscillatory excitation transfer between the dots, the latter provide the dissipation resulting in directional Förster transfer. We present an exact microscopic treatment of the phonon-assisted transitions between hybridized exciton levels of the coupled QD system, going beyond the simple perturbative approaches commonly used in the literature. From our asymptotically exact results we extract population decay times T₁, dephasing times T₂, and resulting pure dephasing times T₂^* of the states. We compare this treatment with an analytical model based on Fermi's golden rule, combining the most accurate elements of existing analytical treatments. The exact results show a significant deviation from this model in some parameter regimes, mainly due to the role of multi-phonon processes, which become important for comparable electron-phonon and dipolar coupling, realised at short distances between the QDs and at elevated temperatures.