Magnetic field induced control of breather dynamics in a single plaquette of Josephson junctions

We present a theoretical study of inhomogeneous dynamic (resistive) states in a single plaquette consisting of three Josephson junctions. Resonant interactions of such a breather state with electromagnetic oscillations manifest themselves by resonant current steps and voltage jumps in the current-voltage characteristics. An externally applied magnetic field leads to a variation of the relative shift between the Josephson current oscillations of two resistive junctions. By making use of the rotation wave approximation analysis and direct numerical simulations we show that this effect allows to effectively control the breather instabilities, e. g. to increase (decrease) the height of the resonant steps and to suppress the voltage jumps in the current-voltage characteristics.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Spontaneous creation of discrete breathers in Josephson arrays

We report on the experimental generation of discrete breather states (intrinsic localized modes) in frustrated Josephson arrays. Our experiments indicate the formation of discrete breathers during the transition from the static to the dynamic (whirling) system state, induced by a uniform external current. Moreover, spatially extended resonant states, driven by a uniform current, are observed to evolve into localized breather states. Experiments were performed on single Josephson plaquettes as well as open-ended Josephson ladders with 10 and 20 cells. We interpret the breather formation as the result of the penetration of vortices into the system.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

UN FORMULARI PORTÀTIL DE L’ANY 1826

En aquesta comunicació es dóna a conèixer un formulari que pel seu tamany 10x15 cm, suposa per l’època una novetat pel seu títol “Formulario Portátil”. El seu autor M.A.Richard, fou doctor en Medicina, agregat amb exercici a la Facultat de  Medicina de Paris i membre de la Reial Acadèmia de Medicina de Paris. L’obra és la primera edició espanyola de la tercera edició francesa, traduïda del francès per Manuel Anselmo Rodriguez, llicenciat en Farmàcia, augmentada amb les substàncies actives descobertes per Pelletier i Caventou, Brandes, Duncan, Chevallier,  Lassaigne, Vauquelin, Feneulle, Magendie, Canzoreni, Henry, Ives, Derosne,  Sertuerner, Boullay, Desfoses, Orstaedt, Courtois. Fa referència a l’obra de Mateu Orfila i les seves descobertes, així com la descripció dels medicaments, segons les seves formes farmacèutiques i els diferents mètodes curatius. Es dóna a conèixer la segona edició feta a Barcelona l’any 1850.En esta comunicación se da a conocer un formulario que por su tamaño 10x15 cm, supone por la época una novedad por su título “Formulario Portátil”. Su autor  M.A.Richard fue doctor en Medicina, agregado con ejercicio en la Facultad de Medicina de Paris y miembro de la Real Academia de Medicina de Paris. La obra es la primera edición española de la tercera edición francesa traducida del francés por  Manuel Anselmo Rodriguez, licenciado en Farmacia, aumentada con las sustancias activas descubiertas por Pelletier y Caventou, Brandes, Duncan, Chevallier,  Lassaigne, Vauquelin, Feneulle, Magendie, Canzoreni, Henry, Ives, Derosne,  Sertuerner, Boullay, Desfoses, Orstaedt, Courtois. Hace referencia a la obra de  Mateo Orfila y sus descubrimientos, así como la descripción de los medicamentos,  según sus formas farmacéuticas y los diferentes métodos curativos. Se da a  conocer la segunda edición hecha en Barcelona el año 1850

Observation of breather-like states in a single Josephson cell

We present experimental observation of broken-symmetry states in a superconducting loop with three Josephson junctions. These states are generic for discrete breathers in Josephson ladders. The existence region of the breather-like states is found to be in good accordance with the theoretical expectations. We observed three different resonant states in the current-voltage characteristics of the broken-symmetry state, as predicted by theory. The experimental dependence of the resonances on the external magnetic field is studied in detail.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure

Instabilities in Josephson Ladders with Current Induced Magnetic Fields

We report on a theoretical analysis, consisting of both numerical and analytic work, of the stability of synchronization of a ladder array of Josephson junctions under the influence of current induced magnetic fields. Surprisingly, we find that as the ratio of the mutual to self inductance of the cells of the array is increased a region of unstable behavior occurs followed by reentrant stable synchronization. Analytic work tells us that in order to understand fully the cause of the observed instabilities the behavior of the vertical junctions, sometimes ignored in analytic analyses of ladder arrays, must be taken into account.Comment: RevTeX, 4 pages, 3 figure

Experimental Critical Current Patterns in Josephson Junction Ladders

We present an experimental and theoretical study of the magnetic field dependence of the critical current of Josephson junction ladders. At variance with the well-known case of a one-dimensional (1D) parallel array of Josephson junctions the magnetic field patterns display a single minimum even for very low values of the self-inductance parameter $\beta_{\rm L}$. Experiments performed changing both the geometrical value of the inductance and the critical current of the junctions show a good agreement with numerical simulations. We argue that the observed magnetic field patterns are due to a peculiar mapping between the isotropic Josephson ladder and the 1D parallel array with the self-inductance parameter $\beta_{\rm L}^{\rm eff}=\beta_{\rm L}+2$.Comment: 4 pages, 4 picture

Discrete breathers in nonlinear lattices: Experimental detection in a Josephson array

We present an experimental study of discrete breathers in an underdamped Josephson-junction array. Breathers exist under a range of dc current biases and temperatures, and are detected by measuring dc voltages. We find the maximum allowable bias current for the breather is proportional to the array depinning current while the minimum current seems to be related to a junction retrapping mechanism. We have observed that this latter instability leads to the formation of multi-site breather states in the array. We have also studied the domain of existence of the breather at different values of the array parameters by varying the temperature.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Physical Revie

Soliton ratchets

The mechanism underlying the soliton ratchet, both in absence and in presence of noise, is investigated. We show the existence of an asymmetric internal mode on the soliton profile which couples, trough the damping in the system, to the soliton translational mode. Effective soliton transport is achieved when the internal mode and the external force are phase locked. We use as working model a generalized double sine-Gordon equation. The phenomenon is expected to be valid for generic soliton systems.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Soliton ratchets induced by ac forces with harmonic mixing

The ratchet dynamics of a kink (topological soliton) of a dissipative sine-Gordon equation in the presence of ac forces with harmonic mixing (at least bi-harmonic) of zero mean is studied. The dependence of the kink mean velocity on system parameters is investigated numerically and the results are compared with a perturbation analysis based on a point particle representation of the soliton. We find that first order perturbative calculations lead to incomplete descriptions, due to the important role played by the soliton-phonon interaction in establishing the phenomenon. The role played by the temporal symmetry of the system in establishing soliton ratchets is also emphasized. In particular, we show the existence of an asymmetric internal mode on the kink profile which couples to the kink translational mode through the damping in the system. Effective soliton transport is achieved when the internal mode and the external force get phase locked. We find that for kinks driven by bi-harmonic drivers consisting of the superposition of a fundamental driver with its first odd harmonic, the transport arises only due to this {\it internal mode} mechanism, while for bi-harmonic drivers with even harmonic superposition, also a point-particle contribution to the drift velocity is present. The phenomenon is robust enough to survive the presence of thermal noise in the system and can lead to several interesting physical applications.Comment: 9 pages, 13 figure