Effects of Lévy noise on the dynamics of sine-Gordon solitons in long Josephson junctions

Abstract

We numerically investigate the generation of solitons in currentbiased long Josephson junctions in relation to the superconducting lifetime and the voltage drop across the device. The dynamics of the junction is modelled with a sine-Gordon equation driven by an oscillating field and subject to an external non-Gaussian noise. A wide range of α-stable Levy distributions is considered as a noise source, with varying stability index α and asymmetry parameter β. In junctions longer than a critical length, the mean switching time (MST) from the superconductive to the resistive state assumes a value independent of the device length. Here, we demonstrate that this value is directly related to the mean density of solitons which move into or from the washboard potential minimum corresponding to the initial superconductive state. Moreover, we observe: (i) a connection between the total mean soliton density and the mean potential difference across the junction; (ii) an inverse behaviour of the mean voltage in comparison with the MST, with varying the junction length; (iii) evidence of non-monotonic behaviours, such as stochastic resonant activation and noise-enhanced stability, of the MST versus the driving frequency and noise intensity for different values of α and β; (iv) finally, these non-monotonic behaviours are found to be related to the mean density of the solitons formed along the junction.