2007/11/06 by Robert Alicki, Fabio Benatti, Roberto Floreanini
Physics and Astronomy · #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #cond-mat.other #hep-th #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.physleta.2007.10.085
published as Phys.Lett.A372:1968-1971,2008 · 8 pages, LaTeX
arxiv created 2007/11/06 · openalex publication_date 2007/11/08 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Charge oscillations in certain nanodevices, more specifically the so-called Superconducting Cooper Pair Boxes (SCB), are usually interpreted as an effect of macroscopic quantum coherence; an alternative explanation is however possible in terms of the Gross-Pitaewski equation for the classical order parameter. These two explanations are based on different quantum states assigned to the SCB, occupation number states in the first case, coherent-like states in the second one. We show that, when the SCB is weakly coupled to an external source of noise and dissipation, occupation number states are much more unstable than coherent ones.