Charge-transfer excited states in aqueous DNA: Insights from many-body Green's function theory

Charge-transfer (CT) excited states play an important role in the excited-state dynamics of DNA in aqueous solution. However, there is still much controversy on their energies. By ab initio many-body Green's function theory, together with classical molecular dynamics simulations, we confirm the existence of CT states at the lower energy side of the optical absorption maximum in aqueous DNA as observed in experiments. We find that the hydration shell can exert strong effects (∼1  eV) on both the electronic structure and CT states of DNA molecules through dipole electric fields. In this case, the solvent cannot be simply regarded as a macroscopic screening medium as usual. The influence of base stacking and base pairing on the CT states is also discussed.