Anomalous Thermal Escape in Josephson Systems Perturbed by Microwaves

By experiments and numerical simulations, thermal activation processes of Josephson tunnel junctions are investigated in the presence of microwave radiation. When the applied signal resonates with the Josephson plasma frequency oscillations, the switching current may become multi-valued temperature ranging both below and above the classical to quantum crossover temperature. Switching current distributions are obtained both experimentally and numerically at temperatures both near and far above the quantum crossover temperature. Plots of the switching currents traced as a function of the applied signal frequency show very good agreement with a simple anharmonic theory for Josephson resonance frequency as a function of bias current. Throughout, experimental results and direct numerical simulations of the corresponding thermally driven classical Josephson junction model show very good agreement.