Superradiant emission stimulated by vortex-antivortex pair production in layered superconductors

Abstract

We report numerical simulations of coupled sine-Gordon and heat diffusion equations describing dynamic states stimulated by a trapped vortex driven by dc current in a stack of up to N=321 Josephson junctions. It is shown that the Cherenkov wake behind the vortex shuttle trapped in the stack can trigger proliferation of counterpropagating vortices and antivortices which get synchronized and form large-amplitude standing electromagnetic waves. This happens if the dc current density J exceeds a threshold value Js which can be well below the Josephson interlayer critical current density Jc for underdamped junctions. The cavity modes stimulated by the vortex-antivortex pair production cause peaks in the radiated power PN(J) with a nearly monochromatic spectrum at discrete values of J corresponding to the zero-field Fiske resonances. The power PN(J) was evaluated for small rectangular stacks in the magnetodipole approximation and for large stacks in a single mode state. For small stacks, the highest peak in PN(J) increases rapidly, PN∝N6, with the number of junctions at N≤81 and gradually slows down to PN∝N2 at 161≤N≤321. For stacks larger than the radiation wavelength, we obtained PN∝N5 at N≲200–300 and PN∝N2 at larger N. At N≤321 and representative parameters of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ, we observed moderate overheating and no hotspots. The vortex-antivortex pair production can amplify THz radiation from Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ mesas for which trapping Josephson vortices could be used to stimulate THz emission at subcritical currents and optimize the radiation output.

Source-reported materials — not catalogue approval

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