Influence of lowfrequency noise on macroscopic quantum tunneling in superconducting circui.pdfVIP

Influence of Low Frequency Noise on Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling in Superconducting Circuits Mathias Duckheim1,†∗ and Joachim Ankerhold1,2 1Physikalisches Institut, Albert-Ludwigs-Universit¨at Freiburg, 4 Hermann-Herder-Straße 3, D-79104 Freiburg, Germany, 0 2 Quantronics group, Service de Physique de l’Etat Condens´e, 0 DSM/DRECAM, CEA Saclay, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France 2 (Dated: February 2, 2008) v o The influence of low to moderate frequency environments on Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling (MQT) in superconducting circuits is studied within the ImF approach to evaluate tunneling rates. N Particular attention is paid to two model environments, namely, a pure sluggish bath and a slug- 5 gish bath with additional 1/f noise. General findings are applied to Zener flip tunneling, a MQT 2 phenomenon recently predicted and observed in a superconducting circuit implementing a quantum bit. ] l PACS numbers: 74.50.+r, 05.40.-a, 85.25.Cp, 03.67.Lx l a h - I. INTRODUCTION for the implementation of quantum bits, the role of s e low frequency modes in the environmental spectrum has m The decay of a metastable system through macro- turned out to be substantial [12, 13, 14, 15, 16]. Bath t. scopic quantum tunneling