Fluctuations in Extractable Work Bound the Charging Power of Quantum Batteries

We study the connection between the charging power of quantum batteries and the fluctuations of the stored work. We prove that in order to have a non-zero rate of change of the extractable work, the state ρW of the battery cannot be an eigenstate of a `\emph{work operator}', defined by F ≡ HW + β−1log(ρW), where HW is the Hamiltonian of the battery and β is the inverse temperature of a reference thermal bath with respect to which the extractable work is calculated. We do so by proving that fluctuations in the stored work upper bound the charging power of a quantum battery. Our findings also suggest that quantum coherence in the battery enhances the charging process, which we illustrate on a toy model of a heat engine.