Field-induced superconductor to insulator transition in Josephson-junction ladders

Abstract

The superconductor to insulator transition is studied in a self-charging model for a ladder of Josephson-junctions in presence of an external magnetic field. Path integral Monte Carlo simulations of the equivalent (1+1)-dimensional classical model are used to study the phase diagram and critical behavior. In addition to a superconducting (vortex-free) phase, a vortex phase can also occur for increasing magnetic field and small charging energy. It is found that an intervening insulating phase separates the superconducting from the vortex phases. Surprisingly, a finite-size scaling analysis shows that the field-induced superconducting to insulator transition is in the KT universality class even tough the external field breaks time-reversal symmetry.

5 pages, 7 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. B

References in corpus (2)

• Scaling Analysis of Magnetic Filed Tuned Phase Transitions in One-Dimensional Josephson Junction Arrays
• Superfluid-insulator transition of the Josephson junction array model with commensurate frustration

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• Robust and Ultrafast State Preparation by Ramping Artificial Gauge Potentials
• Superconductor-insulator transition of Josephson-junction arrays on a honeycomb lattice in a magnetic field
• Spin-gap spectroscopy in a bosonic flux ladder
• Fully frustrated Josephson junction ladders with Mobius boundary conditions as topologically protected qubits