Large collective power enhancement in dissipative charging of a quantum battery

Abstract

We consider a model for a quantum battery consisting of a collection of $N$ two-level atoms driven by a classical field and decaying to a common reservoir. In the extensive regime, where the energy $E$ scales as $N$ and the fluctuations $\Delta E/E\to 0$, our dissipative charging protocol yields a power proportional to $N^2$, a scaling that cannot be achieved in this regime by Hamiltonian protocols. The tradeoff for this enhanced charging power is a relative inefficiency, since a large fraction of the incoming energy is lost through spontaneous emission to the environment. Nevertheless, we find the system can store a large amount of coherence, and also release the stored energy coherently through spontaneous emission, again with a power scaling as $N^2$.