Charge solitons and their dynamical mass in 1-D arrays of Josephson junctions

Abstract

We investigate the charge transport in one-dimensional arrays of Josephson junctions. In the interesting regime of "small charge solitons" (polarons), the charge dynamics is strongly influenced by the polaronic effects, i.e., by dressing of a Cooper pair by charge dipoles. In particular, the soliton's mass in this regime scales approximately as inverse square of the Josephson energy. We employ two theoretical techniques: the many body tight-binding approach and the mean-field approach. Results of the two approaches agree in the regime of "small charge solitons".