Experimental implications of intrinsic quasiparticle mechanisms of dissipation in the switching dynamics of Josephson devices

We study the decay of the zero-voltage state including in the equivalent circuit model the quasiparticle tunneling and the interference cos phi term. As a result of our approach, the effective resistance to describe the junction dissipation, which was an arbitrary parameter in the RSJ model, can be now obtained in terms of the measurable junction parameters and bias conditions. This allows a direct comparison of data with the theory. The very good agreement between data and theory confirms the essential correctness of our assumptions. Our data provide also an excellent experimental test of the thermal activation theory in underdamped physical systems.