Thermal vapor quantum battery based on collective atomic spins
Pith reviewed 2026-05-10 05:23 UTC · model grok-4.3
The pith
A thermal vapor of rubidium atoms forms a room-temperature quantum battery whose capacity is measured directly from extremal energies reachable by unitary operations.
A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.
Core claim
We realize a room-temperature quantum battery based on a collective atomic spin ensemble in a thermal alkali-metal vapor, containing approximately 10^12 87Rb atoms with coherence times exceeding 110 ms. We operationally determine the battery capacity by directly measuring the extremal internal energies accessible under unitary evolution. This tomography-free protocol agrees closely with the conventional state-based definition and verifies the decomposition of capacity into coherent and incoherent contributions. We further show that quantum coherence can substantially enhance the storage capability independently of level populations, and experimentally establish quantitative relations linking
What carries the argument
The tomography-free protocol that extracts battery capacity from the difference between the highest and lowest internal energies reachable by unitary evolution on the collective spin state.
If this is right
- Capacity decomposes cleanly into coherent and incoherent contributions that can be tracked separately.
- Quantum coherence increases extractable energy even when the atomic level populations are held constant.
- Battery capacity maintains quantitative relations to von Neumann, Tsallis, and linear entropies that persist under controlled dephasing.
- A magnetic-field gradient can be used as a tunable dephasing channel to reduce capacity monotonically with coherence loss.
- Thermal atomic spin ensembles in vapor cells constitute a scalable platform for macroscopic quantum energy storage.
Where Pith is reading between the lines
- The same vapor-cell platform already used for magnetometry and atomic clocks could host both sensing and energy-storage functions in one device.
- Extending coherence times beyond 110 ms or increasing atom number would raise the absolute capacity while preserving the entropy relations.
- The observed entropy-capacity links may apply to other collective spin systems, such as nitrogen-vacancy ensembles or trapped-ion crystals, if similar tomography-free protocols are implemented.
Load-bearing premise
Measuring extremal energies under unitary evolution fully captures the battery capacity and its coherent-incoherent split without systematic errors introduced by magnetic-gradient dephasing.
What would settle it
A side-by-side comparison in which the extremal energies measured by the unitary protocol deviate by more than experimental uncertainty from the energies computed from full state tomography would falsify the operational definition of capacity.
Figures
read the original abstract
Quantum batteries harness non-classical resources, such as quantum coherence and entanglement, to surpass the performance limits of classical energy-storage devices. Here we realize a room-temperature quantum battery based on a collective atomic spin ensemble in a thermal alkali-metal vapor, containing approximately $10^{12}$ $^{87}$Rb atoms with coherence times exceeding 110 ms. We operationally determine the battery capacity by directly measuring the extremal internal energies accessible under unitary evolution. This tomography-free protocol agrees closely with the conventional state-based definition and verifies the decomposition of capacity into coherent and incoherent contributions. We further show that quantum coherence can substantially enhance the storage capability independently of level populations, and experimentally establish quantitative relations linking battery capacity to von Neumann, Tsallis and linear entropies. By introducing a controlled dephasing channel with a magnetic-field gradient, we observe a monotonic reduction of capacity with coherence loss and track the corresponding evolution of the entropy-capacity relations. Our results identify thermal atomic spin ensembles as a scalable platform for quantum batteries and connect macroscopic quantum energy storage with operational quantum thermodynamics.
Editorial analysis
A structured set of objections, weighed in public.
Referee Report
Summary. The manuscript reports the experimental realization of a room-temperature quantum battery using a collective spin ensemble of ~10^12 87Rb atoms in thermal alkali vapor, with coherence times >110 ms. Battery capacity is determined operationally by directly measuring the extremal internal energies reachable under unitary evolution (tomography-free protocol), which is shown to agree closely with the conventional state-based definition. The work decomposes capacity into coherent and incoherent contributions, establishes quantitative links to von Neumann, Tsallis, and linear entropies, and demonstrates monotonic capacity reduction under controlled magnetic-gradient dephasing.
Significance. If the central claims hold, this is a significant experimental advance: it provides a scalable, room-temperature platform for quantum batteries based on macroscopic atomic ensembles, offers an operational verification of ergotropy without full tomography, and directly connects capacity to entropy measures while isolating coherence effects via controlled dephasing. The long coherence times and large atom number make the system promising for further quantum thermodynamics studies.
major comments (2)
- [Abstract and experimental methods] The central claim that the tomography-free extremal-energy protocol accurately captures the full battery capacity (and its coherent/incoherent decomposition) rests on the assumption that the implemented unitaries reach the global max/min eigenvalues of the effective Hamiltonian. The manuscript provides no quantitative verification (e.g., calibration data, pulse-sequence details, or bounds on residual magnetic inhomogeneity) that the RF/optical controls are complete enough to avoid systematic underestimation due to collective dephasing or finite bandwidth; this directly affects the reported close agreement with the state-based definition and the subsequent entropy relations.
- [Results on entropy relations and dephasing] The entropy-capacity relations and the monotonic reduction under controlled dephasing are presented as quantitative verifications, but without reported error bars, data-exclusion criteria, or statistical analysis of the capacity-entropy fits, it is unclear whether the observed relations are robust or could be affected by the same unitary incompleteness.
minor comments (2)
- [Introduction and theory] Clarify the precise definition of the operational capacity (extremal energies under unitary evolution) versus the state-based ergotropy in the main text, including any assumptions about the effective Hamiltonian.
- [Experimental setup] The coherence time of >110 ms is a key figure; provide the measurement protocol and any dependence on atom number or temperature.
Simulated Author's Rebuttal
We thank the referee for their careful and constructive review of our manuscript. We address each major comment point by point below, providing clarifications and indicating revisions made to strengthen the presentation of our results.
read point-by-point responses
-
Referee: [Abstract and experimental methods] The central claim that the tomography-free extremal-energy protocol accurately captures the full battery capacity (and its coherent/incoherent decomposition) rests on the assumption that the implemented unitaries reach the global max/min eigenvalues of the effective Hamiltonian. The manuscript provides no quantitative verification (e.g., calibration data, pulse-sequence details, or bounds on residual magnetic inhomogeneity) that the RF/optical controls are complete enough to avoid systematic underestimation due to collective dephasing or finite bandwidth; this directly affects the reported close agreement with the state-based definition and the subsequent entropy relations.
Authors: We acknowledge the value of explicit verification for the completeness of the applied unitaries. The original manuscript presented the close agreement (within experimental precision) between the tomography-free extremal-energy measurements and the state-based ergotropy calculation as supporting evidence for the protocol's validity, since the latter is derived from full state tomography. To address the concern directly, the revised manuscript includes additional details in the Methods section: RF pulse calibration data (Rabi frequencies and detuning bounds), the specific pulse sequence parameters used for the extremal energy projections, and quantitative bounds on residual magnetic inhomogeneity inferred from the measured coherence time exceeding 110 ms. These show that inhomogeneity-induced dephasing rates are low enough to support the assumption of near-global rotations for the collective spin ensemble. We agree that any residual incompleteness could in principle lead to underestimation, but note that such effects would impact both the tomography-free and state-based approaches in a correlated manner, preserving the reported agreement. revision: yes
-
Referee: [Results on entropy relations and dephasing] The entropy-capacity relations and the monotonic reduction under controlled dephasing are presented as quantitative verifications, but without reported error bars, data-exclusion criteria, or statistical analysis of the capacity-entropy fits, it is unclear whether the observed relations are robust or could be affected by the same unitary incompleteness.
Authors: We agree that the absence of explicit error bars and statistical details in the original presentation leaves the robustness of the entropy-capacity relations open to question. In the revised manuscript, we have added error bars to all data points in the relevant figures (derived from the standard deviation across 5–10 repeated experimental runs) and included a dedicated paragraph in the Results section describing the data analysis. This covers the data-exclusion criteria (based on a minimum signal-to-noise threshold for the absorption signals) and reports the results of linear regression fits to the capacity versus entropy data, including R-squared values and p-values confirming statistical significance. The monotonic reduction under controlled dephasing is now shown with these uncertainties, and the consistency of the relations across multiple dephasing strengths supports their robustness independent of minor unitary imperfections. revision: yes
Circularity Check
No circularity: experimental measurements and relations are independent of inputs
full rationale
The paper's core results consist of direct experimental measurements of extremal internal energies under unitary evolution on a thermal Rb spin ensemble, with capacity decomposed into coherent/incoherent parts and related to entropies via controlled dephasing. These are operational protocols validated by agreement with state-based definitions, without any derivations, fitted parameters renamed as predictions, or self-citation chains that reduce claims to inputs by construction. The tomography-free approach and entropy-capacity relations are established through physical implementation and data, remaining self-contained against external benchmarks.
Axiom & Free-Parameter Ledger
axioms (2)
- standard math Standard quantum mechanics governs unitary evolution, internal energy, and von Neumann/Tsallis/linear entropy for the spin ensemble.
- domain assumption The thermal alkali vapor can be treated as a collective atomic spin system with coherence times exceeding 110 ms under the experimental conditions.
Reference graph
Works this paper leans on
-
[1]
F. Campaioli, S. Gherardini, J. Q. Quach, M. Polini, and G. M. Andolina, Colloquium: Quantum batteries, Rev. Mod. Phys.96, 031001 (2024)
work page 2024
-
[2]
Camposeo and others, Quantum batteries: a materials science perspective, Adv
A. Camposeo and others, Quantum batteries: a materials science perspective, Adv. Mater.37, 2415073 (2025)
work page 2025
-
[3]
A.E.Allahverdyan, R.Balian,andT.M.Nieuwenhuizen, Maximal work extraction from finite quantum systems, Europhys. Lett.67, 565 (2004)
work page 2004
-
[4]
R. Alicki and M. Fannes, Entanglement boost for ex- tractable work from ensembles of quantum batteries, Phys. Rev. E87, 042123 (2013)
work page 2013
-
[5]
F. Campaioli, F. A. Pollock, F. C. Binder, and et al., En- hancing the charging power of quantum batteries, Phys. Rev. Lett.118, 150601 (2017)
work page 2017
-
[6]
H. L. Shi, S. Ding, Q. K. Wan, and et al., Entanglement, coherence, and extractable work in quantum batteries, Phys. Rev. Lett.129, 130602 (2022)
work page 2022
-
[7]
M. Perarnau-Llobet, K. V. Hovhannisyan, M. Huber, P. Skrzypczyk, N. Brunner, and A. Acín, Extractable work from correlations, Phys. Rev. X5, 041011 (2015)
work page 2015
-
[8]
G. M. Andolina, M. Keck, A. Mari, M. Campisi, V. Gio- vannetti, and M. Polini, Extractable work, the role of correlations, and asymptotic freedom in quantum bat- teries, Phys. Rev. Lett.122, 047702 (2019)
work page 2019
-
[9]
F. H. Kamin, F. T. Tabesh, S. Salimi, and A. C. Santos, Entanglement, coherence, and charging process of quan- tum batteries, Phys. Rev. E102, 7 (2020)
work page 2020
-
[10]
R. P. A. Simon, J. Anders, and K. V. Hovhannisyan, Correlations enable lossless ergotropy transport, Phys. Rev. Lett.134, 010408 (2025)
work page 2025
-
[11]
D. Ferraro, M. Campisi, G. M. Andolina, V. Pellegrini, and M. Polini, High-power collective charging of a solid- state quantum battery, Phys. Rev. Lett.120, 117702 (2018)
work page 2018
-
[12]
T. P. Le, J. Levinsen, K. Modi, M. M. Parish, and F. A. Pollock, Spin-chain model of a many-body quantum bat- tery, Phys. Rev. A97, 022106 (2018). 10
work page 2018
-
[13]
D. Rossini, G. M. Andolina, D. Rosa, M. Carrega, and M. Polini, Quantum advantage in the charging process of sachdev-ye-kitaevbatteries,Phys.Rev.Lett.125,236402 (2020)
work page 2020
-
[14]
L.P.García-Pintos, A.Hamma,andA.DelCampo,Fluc- tuations in extractable work bound the charging power of quantum batteries, Phys. Rev. Lett.125, 040601 (2020)
work page 2020
- [15]
-
[16]
A. G. Catalano, S. M. Giampaolo, O. Morsch, V. Giovan- netti, and F. Franchini, Frustrating quantum batteries, PRX Quantum5, 030319 (2024)
work page 2024
-
[17]
Z.-G. Lu, G. Tian, X.-Y. Lü, and C. Shang, Topological quantum batteries, Phys. Rev. Lett.134, 180401 (2025)
work page 2025
-
[18]
Acín, Entanglement generation is not necessary for optimal work extraction, Phys
K.V.Hovhannisyan, M.Perarnau-Llobet, M.Huber,and A. Acín, Entanglement generation is not necessary for optimal work extraction, Phys. Rev. Lett.111, 240401 (2013)
work page 2013
-
[19]
P. Skrzypczyk, A. J. Short, and S. Popescu, Work extrac- tion and thermodynamics for individual quantum sys- tems, Nat. Comm.5, 4185 (2014)
work page 2014
-
[20]
J. G. Richens and L. Masanes, Work extraction from quantum systems with bounded fluctuations in work, Nat. Comm.7, 13511 (2016)
work page 2016
- [21]
- [22]
-
[23]
F. C. Binder, S. Vinjanampathy, K. Modi, and J. Goold, Quantacell: powerfulchargingofquantumbatteries,New J. Phys.17, 075015 (2015)
work page 2015
-
[24]
W.-L. Song, H.-B. Liu, B. Zhou, W.-L. Yang, and J.-H. An,Remotecharginganddegradationsuppressionforthe quantum battery, Phys. Rev. Lett.132, 090401 (2024)
work page 2024
-
[25]
G. M. Andolina, V. Stanzione, V. Giovannetti, and M. Polini, Genuine quantum advantage in anharmonic bosonic quantum batteries, Phys. Rev. Lett.134, 240430 (2025)
work page 2025
-
[26]
S. Julià-Farré, T. Salamon, A. Riera, M. N. Bera, and M. Lewenstein, Bounds on the capacity and power of quantum batteries, Phys. Rev. Res.2, 023113 (2020)
work page 2020
-
[27]
G. Francica, F. C. Binder, G. Guarnieri, M. T. Mitchi- son, J. Goold, and F. Plastina, Quantum coherence and ergotropy, Phys. Rev. Lett.125, 180603 (2020)
work page 2020
-
[28]
T.Zhang, H.Yang, S.M.Fei,andetal.,Local-projective- measurement-enhanced quantum battery capacity, Phys. Rev. A109, 042424 (2024)
work page 2024
-
[29]
M. Perarnau-Llobet and F. Binder, Quantum thermody- namics for quantum technologies, Nat. Rev. Phys.2, 545 (2020)
work page 2020
-
[30]
M. Horodecki and J. Oppenheim, Fundamental limita- tions for quantum and nanoscale thermodynamics, Nat. Comm.4, 2059 (2013)
work page 2059
-
[31]
R. Alicki and M. Fannes, Quantum thermodynamics, Phys. Rep.680, 1 (2019)
work page 2019
-
[32]
R. Ganardi, T. V. Kondra, N. H. Ng, and A. Streltsov, Second law of entanglement manipulation with an entan- glement battery, Phys. Rev. Lett.135, 010202 (2025)
work page 2025
-
[33]
Yu, Optimal charging of a superconducting quan- tum battery, Quantum Sci
C.K.Hu, J.Qiu, P.J.Souza, J.Yuan, Y.Zhou, L.Zhang, and D. Yu, Optimal charging of a superconducting quan- tum battery, Quantum Sci. Tech.7, 045018 (2022)
work page 2022
- [34]
-
[35]
I. Maillette de Buy Wenniger, S. E. Thomas, M. Maf- fei, S. C. Wein, M. Pont, and P. Senellart, Experimental analysis of energy transfers between a quantum emitter and light fields, Phys. Rev. Lett.131, 260401 (2023)
work page 2023
-
[36]
Z. Niu, Y. Wu, Y. Wang, X. Rong, and J. Du, Exper- imental investigation of coherent ergotropy in a single spin system, Phys. Rev. Lett.133, 180401 (2024)
work page 2024
-
[37]
J. Joshi and T. S. Mahesh, Experimental investigation of a quantum battery using star-topology nmr spin systems, Phys. Rev. A106, 042601 (2022)
work page 2022
- [38]
- [39]
-
[40]
H. Bao, J. Duan, S. Jin, X. Lu, P. Li, W. Qu, M. Wang, I. Novikova, E. E. Mikhailov, K.-F. Zhao,et al., Spin squeezing of10 11 atoms by prediction and retrodiction measurements, Nature581, 159 (2020)
work page 2020
-
[41]
J. Kong, R. Jiménez-Martínez, C. Troullinou, V. G. Lucivero, G. Tóth, and M. W. Mitchell, Measurement- induced, spatially-extended entanglement in a hot, strongly-interacting atomic system, Nat. Comm.11, 2415 (2020)
work page 2020
-
[42]
V. Novikov, J. Jia, T. B. Brasil, A. Grimaldi, M. Bo- coum, M. Balabas, J. H. Müller, E. Zeuthen, and E. S. Polzik, Hybrid quantum network for sensing in the acous- tic frequency range, Nature , 1 (2025)
work page 2025
-
[43]
H. Krauter, C. A. Muschik, K. Jensen, W. Wasilewski, J. M. Petersen, J. I. Cirac, and E. S. Polzik, Entangle- ment generated by dissipation and steady state entangle- ment of two macroscopic objects, Phys. Rev. Lett.107, 080503 (2011)
work page 2011
-
[44]
X. Yang, Y. H. Yang, M. Alimuddin, R. Salvia, S. M. Fei, L. M. Zhao, and M. X. Luo, Battery capacity of energy- storing quantum systems, Phys. Rev. Lett.131, 030402 (2023)
work page 2023
- [45]
-
[46]
T. B. Batalhão, A. M. Souza, L. Mazzola, R. Auccaise, R. S. Sarthour, I. S. Oliveira, and R. M. Serra, Experi- mental reconstruction of work distribution and study of fluctuation relations in a closed quantum system, Phys. Rev. Lett.113, 140601 (2014)
work page 2014
-
[47]
R. Horodecki, P. Horodecki, M. Horodecki, and K. Horodecki, Quantum entanglement, Rev. Mod. Phys. 81, 865 (2009)
work page 2009
-
[48]
P.StrasbergandA.Winter,Firstandsecondlawofquan- tum thermodynamics: A consistent derivation based on a microscopic definition of entropy, PRX Quantum2, 030202 (2021)
work page 2021
-
[49]
T. Baumgratz, M. Cramer, and M. B. Plenio, Quantify- ing coherence, Phys. Rev. Lett.113, 140401 (2014)
work page 2014
-
[50]
Tsallis, Possible generalization of boltzmann-gibbs statistics, J
C. Tsallis, Possible generalization of boltzmann-gibbs statistics, J. Stat. Phys.52, 479 (1988). 11
work page 1988
- [51]
discussion (0)
Sign in with ORCID, Apple, or X to comment. Anyone can read and Pith papers without signing in.