Dissipation-driven phase transition in 2D Josephson arrays

TL;DR

This paper investigates how dissipation influences quantum phase transitions in 2D Josephson arrays, revealing a reentrant transition and conditions for superconducting phase stability through advanced Monte Carlo simulations.

Contribution

It provides a detailed phase diagram of dissipative effects on quantum phase transitions in 2D Josephson arrays, extending previous understanding with numerical results.

Findings

Reentrant superconducting-to-normal transition observed.

Superconducting phase stabilized at low temperature beyond critical dissipation.

Phase diagram explains recent experimental results.

Abstract

We analyze the interplay of dissipative and quantum effects in the proximity of a quantum phase transition. The prototypical system is a resistively shunted two-dimensional Josephson junction array, studied by means of an advanced Fourier path-integral Monte Carlo algorithm. The reentrant superconducting-to-normal phase transition driven by quantum fluctuations, recently discovered in the limit of infinite shunt resistance, persists for moderate dissipation strength but disappears in the limit of small resistance. For large quantum coupling our numerical results show that, beyond a critical dissipation strength, the superconducting phase is always stabilized at sufficiently low temperature. Our phase diagram explains recent experimental findings.