Quantumness of Josephson junctions reexamined

TL;DR

This paper critically examines the quantum versus classical nature of Josephson junctions by comparing two theoretical models, highlighting how model choice influences the interpretation of experimental data and the quantum characteristics of the system.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of two models for Josephson junctions, challenging the assumption of their purely quantum nature and proposing experimental tests to distinguish between models.

Findings

Two models support different quantum interpretations of Josephson junctions.

Mean-field approach suggests classical structure and no entanglement.

Experimental tests can differentiate between quantum and classical models.

Abstract

There exists an increasing evidence supporting the picture of the Josephson junction (JJ) as a "macroscopic quantum system". On the other hand the interpretation of experimental data strongly depends on the assumed theoretical model. We analyse the possible states of a Cooper pair box ("charge qubit") for the two types of models : two-mode Bose-Hubbard model with its large $N$ aproximations and the many-body description within the mean-field approximation (Gross-Pitaevski equation). While the first class of models supports the picture of JJ being a quantum subsystem of a single degree of freedom, the second approach yields an essentially classical structure of accessible quantum states which, in particular, implies the absence of entanglement for two coupled JJ's. The arguments in favor of the mean-field theory are presented and different experimental tests including a new proposal are briefly discussed.