Ballistic-to-Localized Dynamics as Signature of Quantum Phase Transition in Josephson Junction

Abstract

Using state-of-the-art numerical techniques, we investigate how quantum phase fluctuations and quasiparticle tunneling shape the behavior of a small-capacitance Josephson junction across Ohmic, sub-Ohmic, and super-Ohmic dissipation regimes. We show that increasing the Ohmic dissipation strength drives a Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless quantum phase transition at thermodynamic equilibrium. Deviations from Ohmic behavior profoundly alter this scenario: the super-Ohmic regime exhibits no phase transition, whereas the sub-Ohmic regime displays a continuous second-order transition, consistent with the universality classes of the spin-boson model. Within the Ohmic regime, real-frequency linear-response calculations reveal that the phase particle does not undergo the commonly assumed diffusive-to-localized crossover. Instead, finite resistance progressively suppresses the singular zero-frequency response, producing a ballistic-to-localized change in the dynamics. At finite frequencies, coupling to the environment generates a long-lived excitation in the charge response, which evolves into a resonance as the subgap and shunt resistances are reduced.