# Confinement into a state with persistent current by thermal quenching of loop of Josephson junctions

## TL;DR

This paper investigates how a loop of Josephson junctions can be driven into a persistent current state through thermal quenching, revealing symmetry breaking phenomena and flux stability without requiring rapid cooling.

## Contribution

It demonstrates that symmetry breaking states can be achieved without thermal activation for three or more junctions, and analyzes flux stability for large junction arrays.

## Key findings

- Symmetry breaking states occur without thermal activation for ≥3 junctions.
- The probability of symmetry breaking decreases with quenching time, but not allometrically.
- Flux standard deviation remains stable for large junction arrays.

## Abstract

We study a loop of Josephson junctions that is quenched through its critical temperature. For three or more junctions, symmetry breaking states can be achieved without thermal activation, in spite of the fact that the relaxation time is practically constant when the critical temperature is approached from above. The probability for these states decreases with quenching time, but the dependence is not allometric. For large number of junctions, cooling does not have to be fast. For this case, we evaluate the standard deviation of the induced flux. Our results are consistent with the available experimental data.