System versus charger in performance optimization of quantum batteries

Quantum batteries provide a platform for investigating energy storage and extraction in quantum many-body systems. Here, we study a charging protocol in which battery and chargoid roles are assigned to different Hamiltonian components of a standalone many-body spin system. By externally controlling the contribution of the intrinsic battery Hamiltonian during charging, we reveal a tunable competition between intrinsic and charging dynamics. We find that suppressing the intrinsic battery contribution can substantially enhance both the maximum stored energy and charging power, with the magnitude of the enhancement determined by the interaction structure and range. We further investigate the protocol in a Markovian open-system setting that incorporates energy relaxation and pure dephasing. While environmental effects generally degrade charging performance, they can instead enhance energy-storage and energy-extraction dynamics in certain interacting systems. The enhancement associated with the controlled suppression of the intrinsic battery dynamics remains robust in the presence of environmental coupling.