Breathers in a single plaquette of Josephson junctions: existence, stability and resonances

We present a theoretical study of inhomogeneous dynamic (resistive) states in a single plaquette consisting of three Josephson junctions. These breather states are found to exist in a large range of control parameters (d.c. bias γ, anisotropy η and self-inductance βL). We perform an analytical analysis of these states, and their stability and resonance behaviour. Numerical calculations confirm our results and show that instabilities arise due to resonant interactions between the breather and electromagnetic oscillations (EOs) mediated by the breather state. These instabilities manifest themselves by various nonlinearities, resonant steps and voltage jumps in the current–voltage characteristics.