Tunneling and resonant tunneling of fluxons in a long Josephson junction

Journal Article · Mon Dec 01 04:00:00 EST 1997 · Physical Review, B: Condensed Matter

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.56.14677· OSTI ID:550542

Shnirman, A; Ben-Jacob, E ^[1]; Malomed, B ^[2]

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1. School of Physics and Astronomy, Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv, 69978 Tel-Aviv (Israel)
2. School of Mathematical Sciences, Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv, 69978 Tel-Aviv (Israel)

We study fluxon tunneling both across one microshort-type barrier and resonant tunneling across two barriers. We have derived an effective Hamiltonian (using the inverse scattering transform) to study the effect of plasmons on the tunneling. Using a specially derived perturbation scheme, we found two effects: (1) Emission of plasmons and, hence, suppression of quantum effects. Due to the gap in the plasmon spectrum, this is an exponentially small effect. (2) Virtual processes involving plasmons{close_quote} emission and absorption cause an enhancement of the tunneling probability. The magnitude of this enhancement is not exponentially small. We conclude that macroscopic quantum tunneling of fluxons can be observed. We further predict that fluxons{close_quote} resonant tunneling across two barriers can also be observed. This phenomenon provides an ideal test for the quantum behavior of the fluxons. {copyright} {ital 1997} {ital The American Physical Society}

• OSTI ID: 550542
• Journal Information: Physical Review, B: Condensed Matter, Journal Name: Physical Review, B: Condensed Matter Journal Issue: 22 Vol. 56; ISSN 0163-1829; ISSN PRBMDO
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

66 PHYSICS
JOSEPHSON EFFECT
JOSEPHSON JUNCTIONS
MAGNETIC FLUX
PLASMONS
RESONANCE
TUNNEL EFFECT
TUNNELING