Quantum voltage oscillations observed on segments of an inhomogeneous superconducting loop

Abstract

A theoretical prediction published in Phys.Rev. B 64, 012505 (2001) is corroborated experimentally. This corroboration of the theoretical result published in Physical Review B was rejected for publication in the same journal. Such inconsistency is connected with a contradiction to the second law of thermodynamics. According to the theory Phys.Rev. B 64, 012505 (2001) the energy of a noise can be transformed to a dc power in superconducting loop and therefore a dc voltage oscillating with magnetic field can be observed on segments of an inhomogeneous loop in the temperature region close to the superconducting transition. Such quantum voltage oscillations observed in the present work can be induced both by an external electrical noise and by internal equilibrium noise (thermal fluctuations). Violation of the second law takes place in the second case. First of all the theoretical result published by Phys.Rev.B is challenge to the second law but about this contradiction was openly written only in the first version (see physics/0105059) of the experimental paper rejected by Referees of Phys.Rev.B. The transformation of an external electrical noise to the dc voltage was confirmed recently in the paper published in JETP Letters 77, 371 (2003) (see also cond-mat/0303538).