Influence of thermal fluctuations on an underdamped Josephson tunnel junction

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how thermal fluctuations affect the current-voltage behavior of an underdamped Josephson tunnel junction in a resistive environment, providing analytical insights under specific energy conditions.

Contribution

It offers new analytical results on the impact of thermal fluctuations on Josephson junctions with dominant Josephson energy and no quasiparticles.

Findings

Thermal fluctuations significantly modify the I-V characteristics.

Analytical expressions derived for specific energy regimes.

Results applicable to strongly resistive environments.

Abstract

Inspired by a recent experiment, we study the influence of thermal fluctuations on the $I$-$V$ characteristics of a Josephson junction, coupled to a strongly resistive environment. We obtain analytical results in the limit where the Josephson energy is larger than the charging energy and quasiparticles are absent.