Structured chaos in a devil's staircase of the Josephson junction

Abstract

The phase dynamics of Josephson junctions under external electromagnetic radiation is studied through numerical simulations. Current-voltage characteristics, Lyapunov exponents and Poincare sections are analyzed in detail. It is found that the subharmonic Shapiro steps at certain parameters are separated by structured chaotic windows. By performing a linear regression on the linear part of the data, a fractal dimension of D = 0.868 is obtained, with an uncertainty of +-0.012. The chaotic regions exhibit scaling similarity and it is shown that the devil's staircase of the system can form a backbone that unifies and explains the highly correlated and structured chaotic behavior. These features suggest a system possessing multiple complete devil's staircases. The onset of chaos for subharmonic steps occurs through the Feigenbaum period doubling scenario. Universality in the sequence of periodic windows is also demonstrated. Finally the influence of the radiation and Josephson junction parameters on the structured chaos is investigated and it is concluded that the structured chaos is a stable formation over a wide range of parameter values.