Resilience of the quantum critical line in the Schmid transition

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates through advanced analytical and numerical methods that the quantum phase transition in a resistively shunted Josephson junction occurs at a resistance independent of the Josephson and charging energy ratio, confirming the universality of the transition point.

Contribution

The study introduces novel analytical and numerical techniques to prove the invariance of the transition line at R=h/(4e^2) across all energy ratios in the Schmid transition.

Findings

The transition line is at R=h/(4e^2) regardless of energy ratio.

A conformally invariant fermionic model accurately captures the critical physics.

The transition line is robust against ultraviolet cutoffs like plasma frequency.

Abstract

Schmid predicted that a single Josephson junction coupled to a resistive environment undergoes a quantum phase transition to an insulating phase when the shunt resistance $R$ exceeds the resistance quantum $h/(4 e^ 2)$. Recent measurements and theoretical studies have sparked a debate on whether the location of this transition depends on the ratio between the Josephson and the charging energies. We employ a combination of multiple innovative analytical and numerical techniques, never before explicitly applied to this problem, to decisively demonstrate that the transition line between superconducting and insulating behavior is indeed independent of this energy ratio. First, we apply field-theory renormalization group methods and find that the $\beta$ function vanishes along the critical line up to the third order in the Josephson energy. We then identify a simple fermionic model that precisely captures the low-energy physics on the critical line, regardless of the energy ratio. This conformally invariant fermionic model is verified by comparing the expected spectrum with exact diagonalization calculations of the resistively shunted Josephson junction, showing excellent agreement even for moderate system sizes. Importantly, this identification provides a rigorous non-perturbative proof that the transition line is maintained at $R=h/(4 e^ 2)$ for all ratios of Josephson to charging energies. The line is further resilient to other ultraviolet cutoffs such as the plasma frequency of the resistive environment. Finally, we implement an adiabatic approach to validate the duality at large Josephson energy.