Josephson junction detector of non-Gaussian noise

Abstract

The measurement of higher order cumulants of the current noise generated by a nonlinear mesoscopic conductor using a Josephson junction as on-chip detector is investigated theoretically. The paper addresses the regime where the noise of the mesoscopic conductor initiates activated escape of the Josephson detector out of the zero-voltage state, which can be observed as a voltage rise. It is shown that the deviations from Johnson-Nyquist noise can mostly be accounted for by an effective temperature which depends on the second noise cumulant of the conductor. The deviations from Gaussian statistics lead to rather weak effects and essentially only the third cumulant can be measured exploiting the dependence of the corrections to the rate of escape from the zero-voltage state on the direction of the bias current. These corrections vanish as the bias current approaches the critical current. The theory is based on a description of irreversible processes and fluctuations in terms of state variables and conjugate forces. This approach, going back to work by Onsager and Machlup, is extended to account for non-Gaussian noise, and it is shown that the thermodynamically conjugate force to the electric charge plays a role similar to the counting field introduced in more recent approaches to describe non-Gaussian noise statistics. The theory allows to obtain asymptotically exact results for the rate of escape in the weak noise limit for all values of the damping strength of the Josephson detector. Also the feedback of the detector on the noise generating conductor is fully taken into account by treating both coupled mesoscopic devices on an equal footing.

16 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Wide-band detection of the third moment of shot noise by a hysteretic Josephson junction
• Stochastic dynamics of a Josephson junction threshold detector
• Detecting charge noise with a Josephson junction: A problem of thermal escape in presence of non-Gaussian fluctuations
• Josephson junctions as detectors for non-Gaussian noise
• Qubits as devices to detect the third moment of current fluctuations

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Switching times in long-overlap Josephson junctions subject to thermal fluctuations and non-Gaussian noise sources
• Anomalous transport effects on switching currents of graphene-based Josephson junctions
• Lévy noise effects on Josephson junctions
• Asymmetric noise probed with a Josephson junction
• Thermally activated switching in the presence of non-Gaussian noise
• Josephson Junctions as Threshold Detectors of the Full Counting Statistics: Open issues
• Axion field influence on Josephson junction quasipotential
• Linear dynamics subject to thermal fluctuations and non-Gaussian noise: From classical to quantum
• Achieving the threshold regime with an over-screened Josephson junction