Bistability in a mesoscopic Josephson junction array resonator

Abstract

We present an experimental investigation of stochastic switching of a bistable Josephson junction array resonator with a resonance frequency in the GHz range. As the device is in the regime where the anharmonicity is on the order of the linewidth, the bistability appears for a pump strength of only a few photons. We measure the dynamics of the bistability by continuously observing the jumps between the two metastable states, which occur with a rate ranging from a few Hz down to a few mHz. The switching rate strongly depends on the pump strength, readout strength and the temperature, following Kramers' theory. The interplay between nonlinearity and coupling, in this little explored regime, could provide a new resource for nondemolition measurements, single photon switches, or even elements for autonomous quantum error correction.