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Input-output description of microwave radiation in the dynamical Coulomb blockade

Juha Leppäkangas, Göran Johansson, Michael Marthaler, M. Fogelström

Published Jan 1, 2014• 18 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We study microwave radiation emitted by a small voltage-biased Josephson junction connected to a superconducting transmission line. An input-output formalism for the radiation field is established, using a perturbation expansion in the junction's critical current. Using output field operators solved up to the second order, we estimate the spectral density and the second-order coherence of the emitted field. For typical transmission line impedances and at frequencies below the main emission peak at the Josephson frequency, radiation occurs predominantly due to two-photon emission. This emission is characterized by a high degree of photon bunching if detected symmetrically around half of the Josephson frequency. Strong phase fluctuations in the transmission line make related nonclassical phase-dependent amplitude correlations short lived, and there is no steady-state two-mode squeezing. However, the radiation is shown to violate the classical Cauchy-Schwarz inequality of intensity cross-correlations, demonstrating the nonclassicality of the photon pair production in this region.

DOI
10.5445/ir/1000041530

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We study microwave radiation emitted by a small voltage-biased Josephson junction connected to a superconducting transmission line. An input-output formalism for the radiation field is established, using a perturbation expansion in the junction's critical current. Using output field operators solved up to the second order, we estimate the spectral density and the second-order coherence of the emitted field. For typical transmission line impedances and at frequencies below the main emission peak at the Josephson frequency, radiation occurs predominantly due to two-photon emission. This emission is characterized by a high degree of photon bunching if detected symmetrically around half of the Josephson frequency. Strong phase fluctuations in the transmission line make related nonclassical phase-dependent amplitude correlations short lived, and there is no steady-state two-mode squeezing. However, the radiation is shown to violate the classical Cauchy-Schwarz inequality of intensity cross-correlations, demonstrating the nonclassicality of the photon pair production in this region.
We study microwave radiation emitted by a small voltage-biased Josephson junction connected to a superconducting transmission line. An input-output formalism for the radiation field is established, using a perturbation expansion in the junction's critical current. Using output field operators solved up to the second order, we estimate the spectral density and the second-order coherence of the emitted field. For typical transmission line impedances and at frequencies below the main emission peak at the Josephson frequency, radiation occurs predominantly due to two-photon emission. This emission is characterized by a high degree of photon bunching if detected symmetrically around half of the Josephson frequency. Strong phase fluctuations in the transmission line make related nonclassical phase-dependent amplitude correlations short lived, and there is no steady-state two-mode squeezing. However, the radiation is shown to violate the classical Cauchy-Schwarz inequality of intensity cross-correlations, demonstrating the nonclassicality of the photon pair production in this region.
We investigate electromagnetic radiation emitted by a small voltage-biased Josephson junction connected to a superconducting transmission line. At frequencies below the well-known emission peak at the Josephson frequency (2eV/h), extra radiation is triggered by quantum fluctuations in the transmission line. For weak tunneling couplings and typical Ohmic transmission lines, the corresponding photon-flux spectrum is symmetric around half the Josephson frequency, indicating that the photons are predominately created in pairs. By establishing an input-output formalism for the microwave field in the transmission line, we give further evidence for this nonclassical photon pair production, demonstrating that it violates the classical Cauchy-Schwarz inequality for two-mode flux cross correlations. In connection to recent experiments, we also consider a stepped transmission line, where resonances increase the signal-to-noise ratio.
Using a perturbation expansion to the fourth order in a junction critical current, the authors study the generation of nonclassical microwave radiation by inelastic Cooper pair tunneling in a small voltage-biased Josephson junction connected to a superconducting transmission line. The second order in the tunneling current only allows consideration of independent events. Pushing the calculation to the fourth order allows capture of the temporal correlations in the charge transport and their connection to the ones in the emitted electromagnetic radiation.
We study scattering of propagating microwave fields by a DC-voltage-biased Josephson junction. At sub-gap voltages, a small Josephson junction works merely as a non-linear boundary that can absorb, amplify, and diversely convert propagating microwaves. We find that in the leading-order perturbation theory of the Josephson coupling energy, the spectral density and quadrature fluctuations of scattered thermal and coherent radiation can be described in terms of the well-known P(E)P(E)P(E) function. Applying this, we show how thermal and coherent radiation can be absorbed and amplified in a circuit with a resonance frequency. We also show when a coherent input can create a two-mode squeezed output. In addition, we evaluate scattering amplitudes between arbitrary photon-number (Fock) states, describing individual photon multiplication and absorption processes occuring at the junction.
We study scattering of propagating microwave fields by a dc-voltage-biased Josephson junction. At subgap voltages, a small Josephson junction works merely as a nonlinear boundary that can absorb, amplify, and diversely convert propagating microwaves. In the leading-order perturbation theory of the Josephson coupling energy, the spectral density and quadrature fluctuations of scattered thermal and coherent radiation can be described in terms of the well-known P(E)P(E)P(E) function. Applying this, we study how thermal and coherent radiation is absorbed and amplified in an Ohmic transmission line and in a circuit with a resonance frequency. We show when a coherent input can create a two-mode squeezed output. In addition, we evaluate scattering amplitudes between arbitrary photon-number (Fock) states, characterizing individual photon multiplication and absorption processes occurring at the junction.
We study a voltage-biased Josephson junction coupled to two resonators of incommensurate frequencies. Using a density matrix approach to analyze the cavity fields and an input-output description to analyze the emitted photonic fluxes and their correlation functions, we have shown, both for infinite- and finite-bandwidth detectors, that the emitted radiation is nonclassical in the sense that the correlators violate Cauchy-Schwarz inequalities. We have also studied the time dependence of the photonic correlations and showed that their linewidth becomes narrower with the increase of the emission rate approaching from below the threshold limit.