Accurate Switching Currents Measurements in Quantum Washboard Potential

Abstract

We tackle the problem of accurate simulations of switching currents arising from tunnel events in the washboard potentials associated to Josephson junctions. The measurements of the probability distribution of the switching currents is essential to determine the quantum character of the device, and therefore is at the core of technological applications, as Josephson junctions, that have been proposed for quantum computers. In particular, we show how to accurately calibrate the parameters of the boundary conditions to avoid spurious reflections of the wavefunction from the finite border of numerical simulations. The proposed approximate numerical scheme exploits a quantum version of a prefect matched layers for the boundary problems associated with this class of potentials. Thus, we employ the analogous of a well established electromagnetic method to deal with radiation in mesoscopic quantum systems. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the known analytic results are well recovered in the appropriated limits of quantum measurements. We also find that a relaxation time shows up in the dynamics of the quantum evolution in between two consecutive measurements.