Coherence-enhanced, phase-dependent dissipation in long SNS Josephson junctions: revealing Andreev Bound States dynamics

One of the best known causes of dissipation in ac driven quantum systems stems from photon absorption. Dissipation can also be caused by the retarded response to the time-dependent excitation, and in general gives insight into the system’s relaxation times and mechanisms. We address the dissipation in a mesoscopic normal wire with superconducting contacts, that sustains a supercurrent at zero frequency and that may be expected to remain dissipationless at frequency lower than the superconducting gap. We probe the high frequency linear response of a Normal/Superconductor ring to a time-dependent flux by coupling it to a highly sensitive multimode microwave resonator. Far from being the simple derivative of the current-phase relation, the ring’s ac susceptibility also displays a dissipative component whose phase dependence is a signature of the dynamical processes occurring within the Andreev spectrum. We show how dissipation is driven by the competition between the two aforementioned mechanisms. Depending on the relative strength of those contributions, dissipation can be maximal at $\pi$, when the minigap closes, or can be maximal near $\pi \mathrm{/}2$, when the dc supercurrent is maximal. We also find that the dissipative response increases at low temperature and can even exceed the normal state conductance. The results are confronted with predictions of the Kubo linear response and time-dependent Usadel equations. This experiment shows the power of the ac susceptibility measurement of individual hybrid mesoscopic systems in probing in a controlled way the quantum dynamics of ABS. By spanning different physical regimes, our experiments provide a unique access to inelastic scattering and spectroscopy of an isolated quantum coherent system. This technique should be a tool of choice to investigate topological superconductivity and detect the topological protection of edge states.