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Environment-modified three-body energy transfer

Resonant energy transfer from a donor to an acceptor is one of the most basic interactions between atomic and molecular systems. In real-life situations, the donor and acceptor are not isolated but in fact coupled to their environment and to other atoms and molecules. The presence of a third body can modify the rate of energy transfer between donor and acceptor in distinctive and intricate ways, especially when the three-site system is itself interacting with a larger macroscopic background such as a solvent. The rate can be calculated perturbatively, which ordinarily requires the summation of very large numbers of Feynman-like diagrams. Here we demonstrate a method based on canonical perturbation theory that allows us to reduce the computational effort required, and use this technique to derive a formula for the rate of three-body resonance energy transfer in a background environment. As a proof-of-principle, we apply this to the situation of a dimer positioned near a dielectric interface, with a distant third molecule controlling the rate, finding both enhancement or suppression of the rate depending on system parameters.