Voltage staircase in a current-biased quantum-dot Josephson junction

TL;DR

This paper predicts a voltage staircase in a current-biased quantum-dot Josephson junction caused by Rabi oscillations in Andreev levels, offering a new way to probe qubit coherence without external AC signals.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical analysis of voltage steps due to Rabi oscillations in a non-topological Andreev qubit, extending previous topological junction studies.

Findings

Voltage staircase arises from Rabi oscillations in Andreev levels.

Number of steps correlates with Rabi oscillation count per phase cycle.

Provides a method to probe qubit coherence without external AC drive.

Abstract

We calculate the current-voltage (I-V) characteristic of a Josephson junction containing a resonant level in the weakly coupled regime (resonance width small compared to the superconducting gap). The phase $\phi$ across the junction becomes time dependent in response to a DC current bias. Rabi oscillations in the Andreev levels produce a staircase I-V characteristic. The number of voltage steps counts the number of Rabi oscillations per $2\pi$ increment of $\phi$, providing a way to probe the coherence of the qubit in the absence of any external AC driving. The phenomenology is the same as the "Majorana-induced DC Shapiro steps in topological Josephson junctions" of Phys. Rev. B 102, 140501(R) (2020) -- but now for a non-topological Andreev qubit.