Spontaneous Fluxon Production in Annular Josephson Tunnel Junctions in the Presence of a Magnetic Field

Abstract

We report on the spontaneous production of fluxons in the presence of a symmetry-breaking magnetic field for annular Josephson tunnel junctions during a thermal quench. The dependence on field intensity $B$ of the probability $\bar{f_1}$ to trap a single defect during the N-S phase transition drastically depends on the sample circumferences. We show that the data can be understood in the framework of the Kibble-Zurek picture of spontaneous defect formation controlled by causal bounds.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. B with 5 figures on Nov. 15, 200