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arXiv:2203.08705

Engineering the speedup of quantum tunneling in Josephson systems via dissipation

Dominik Maile, Joachim Ankerhold, Sabine Andergassen, Wolfgang Belzig, Gianluca Rastelli

Published Jan 1, 2022• 1 citation
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We theoretically investigate the escape rate occurring via quantum tunneling in a system affected by tailored dissipation. Specifically, we study the environmental assisted quantum tunneling of the superconducting phase in a current-biased Josephson junction. We consider Ohmic resistors inducing dissipation both in the phase and in the charge of the quantum circuit. We find that the charge dissipation leads to an enhancement of the quantum escape rate. This effect appears already in the low Ohmic regime and also occurs in the presence of phase dissipation that favors localization. Inserting realistic circuit parameters, we address the question of its experimental observability and discuss suitable parameter spaces for the observation of the enhanced rate.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.106.045408

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We theoretically investigate the escape rate occurring via quantum tunneling in a system affected by tailored dissipation. Specifically, we study the environmental assisted quantum tunneling of the superconducting phase in a current-biased Josephson junction. We consider Ohmic resistors inducing dissipation both in the phase and in the charge of the quantum circuit. We find that the charge dissipation leads to an enhancement of the quantum escape rate. This effect appears already in the low Ohmic regime and also occurs in the presence of phase dissipation that favors localization. Inserting realistic circuit parameters, we address the question of its experimental observability and discuss suitable parameter spaces for the observation of the enhanced rate.
A new phase diffusive regime in a current biased Josephson junction is theoretically explored which originates from embedding the junction in a circuit environment with anomalous dissipation. This is realized by placing parallel to the junction a resistor in series with a capacitor such that electromagnetic fluctuations effectively couple also to the charge of the junction. This leads to rich Josephson dynamics, in particular for the switching of the junction out of a zero voltage state. Modelled as the escape process of a fictitious phase-particle out of a metastable well, a detailed study reveals that anomalous dissipation has a strong impact at low temperatures when quantum tunneling dominates against thermal activation. As a manifestation, a regime is found, where for realistic circuit parameters the quantum escape process is substantially enhanced, followed by a short voltage pulse and re-trapping with high probability. This class of circuits may be leveraged for detecting microwave photons or dissipative quantum annealing processes. In addition, the analysis provides a general framework for engineering dissipative dynamics in nonlinear systems using anomalous environments.
We report the observation of quantum stochastic synchronization (QSS) in a dissipative quantum system---a moderately damped current-biased Josephson junction. We show that when the junction is biased subcritically by a combination of a constant current and a small sinusoidal modulation signal, forced phase synchronization between the otherwise random, incoherent quantum tunneling and the signal may arise as a consequence of the interplay between quantum fluctuation and the weak periodic drive. It is found that optimal synchronization occurs at a signal frequency fQSS{f}_{\text{QSS}}fQSS​ that is comparable to the quantum tunneling rate. We also find a phenomenon called ``modulation induced suppression of quantum noise'': for signal frequency well below fQSS,{f}_{\text{QSS}},fQSS​, the power spectral density of escape time distribution of the junction could be reduced substantially from the floor level of the unmodulated system. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the application of a small signal with proper phase can suppress the average tunneling rate and enhance the stability of the metastable system. Our experimental results agree well with the numerical calculations without the use of adjustable parameters.
For the realistic theoretical descriptions of quantum devices, we have to take the unavoidable coupling to their surrounding environment into account. A lot of effort in theoretical physics has been made to describe decoherence effects and the corresponding quantum to classical transition in the past. In these studies, baths are coupled to certain observables making their behavior more classical. In the most general case, a quantum device is affected by environments coupled to different observables. In this thesis, we study the differences emerging from coupling the bath to different observables. In particular, we investigate the situation, where two baths are coupled simultaneously to two conjugate variables (e.g. xˆ and pˆ, denoted dissipative frustration). We study how the interplay of these two baths can lead to interesting effects. After an introduction of the topic, we discuss the results of this thesis in Part II and Part III. In Part II, we study the effect of quantum tunneling in presence of a dissipative interaction with two Ohmic environments to the position xˆ and/or to the momentum pˆ of a particle. In chapter 2, we consider a symmetric double well potential which is important in the context of coherent state preparation, as its ground state is a superposition of being in the left and in the right well. Using the semiclassical approximation to calculate instanton paths within the path integral method, we find that momentum dissipation enhances the coherent tunnel splitting. In presence of dissipative couplings to xˆ and pˆ, the momentum dissipation acts in favor of the delocalization of the particle shifting the critical coupling strength of the dissipative phase transition induced by the position dissipation. Chapter 3 contains a study of the escape rate out of a metastable well in presence of dissipation. Here we find that the incoherent tunneling rate is exponentially enhanced in presence of momentum dissipation. We further show that the influence of momentum dissipation depends on the slope of the part of barrier the particle escaping through. In presence of both dissipative couplings, we find a non-monotonic behavior of the escape rate as a function of the dissipative couplings strengths. In Part III, we show that it is possible to realize the situation of "dissipative frustration" in Josephson junction chains. In particular, we introduce charge dissipation as a physical realization of the afore introduced momentum coupling. After presenting the circuit elements needed for charge dissipation, we study a chain of Josephson junctions affected by Ohmic baths coupled to the charge and/or the phase. Using a self-consistent harmonic approximation, we determine the phase diagram at zero temperature which exhibits a quantum phase transition between an ordered phase, corresponding to the superconducting state, and a disordered phase, corresponding to the insulating state with localized superconducting charge. Interestingly, we find that the critical line separating the two phases has a non-monotonic behavior as a function of the dissipative coupling strength. Moreover, within the self-consistent harmonic approximation, we analyze the dissipation induced crossover between a first and second order phase transition, showing that dissipative frustration increases the range in which the phase transition is second order. The non-monotonic behavior is also reflected in the purity of the system that quantifies the degree of correlation between the system and the environment, and in the logarithmic negativity as an entanglement measure that encodes the internal quantum correlations in the chain.
The Josephson effect is a privileged access to the macroscopic quantum nature of superconductors. We review some ideas and experimental techniques on macroscopic quantum decay phenomena occurring in Josephson structures. The attention is mainly addressed to intermediate levels of dissipation which characterize a large majority of low critical current Josephson devices and are therefore an avoidable consequence of nanotechnology applied more and more to Josephson devices. Phase diffusion phenomena take over thermal activation in some temperature ranges also affecting the transition to macroscopic quantum tunneling, enriching the phase diagram mostly defined by the Josephson energy, the temperature and the level of dissipation.