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Photosynthetic structures are finely tuned to capture solar light efficiently and transfer it to molecular reaction centers for conversion into chemical energy with 95% or more efficiency. How these light-harvesting systems achieve such a high-efficiency is still a long-standing question in science. Fundamental breakthroughs towards answering this question have recently been achieved. In particular, direct evidence of long-lasting electronic coherence during excitation transfer in photosynthetic complexes has been obtained. Here, we study the energy transfer efficiency in a photosynthetic core where a light harvesting antenna is connected to a reaction centre as in purple bacteria. By using a quantum jump approach, we demonstrate that, in the presence of quantum coherent energy transfer, initial state properties could be used as an efficiency control parameter and energetic disorder favors this feature. Our results open up experimental possibilities to investigate and exploit such coherent phenomena in artificial and natural systems capable of harvesting light. |