Zloshchastiev, Konstantin G.2025-06-052025-06-052017-9Zloshchastiev, K.G. 2017. Sustainability of environment-assisted energy transfer in quantum photobiological complexes. Annalen der Physik (AdP). 529(9):1-6. doi:10.1002/andp.2016001850003-38041521-3889 (Online)isidoc: FF9ENhttps://hdl.handle.net/10321/60226 pages (5 in the journal version), 4 composite figuresIt is shown that quantum sustainability is a universal phenomenon which emerges during environment‐assisted electronic excitation energy transfer (EET) in photobiological complexes (PBCs), such as photosynthetic reaction centers and centers of melanogenesis. We demonstrate that quantum photobiological systems must be sustainable for them to simultaneously endure continuous energy transfer and keep their internal structure from destruction or critical instability. These quantum effects occur due to the interaction of PBCs with their environment which can be described by means of the reduced density operator and effective non‐Hermitian Hamiltonian (NH). Sustainable NH models of EET predict the coherence beats, followed by the decrease of coherence down to a small, yet non‐zero value. This indicates that in sustainable PBCs, quantum effects survive on a much larger time scale than the energy relaxation of an exciton. We show that sustainable evolution significantly lowers the entropy of PBCs and improves the speed and capacity of EET.6 penAttribution 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Excitation energy transport in disordered systemsQuantum transport and quantum correlationsNon-equlibrium physics and driven systemsQuantum biologyPhysics.bio-phPhysics.bio-phCond-mat.stat-mechq-bio.SCQuant-ph01 Mathematical Sciences02 Physical SciencesGeneral Physics49 Mathematical sciences51 Physical sciencesArticle2025-03-2010.1002/andp.201600185