Electronic structure of superposition states in flux qubits

J. I. Korsbakken, F. K. Wilhelm, K. B. Whaley

Published 2009-10-19, updated 2010-04-13Version 2

Flux qubits, small superconducting loops interrupted by Josephson junctions, are successful realizations of quantum coherence for macroscopic variables. Superconductivity in these loops is carried by $\sim 10^6$ -- $10^{10}$ electrons, which has been interpreted as suggesting that coherent superpositions of such current states are macroscopic superpositions analogous to Schr\"odinger's cat. We provide a full microscopic analysis of such qubits, from which the macroscopic quantum description can be derived. This reveals that the number of microscopic constituents participating in superposition states for experimentally accessible flux qubits is surprisingly but not trivially small. The combination of this relatively small size with large differences between macroscopic observables in the two branches is seen to result from the Fermi statistics of the electrons and the large disparity between the values of superfluid and Fermi velocity in these systems.