Relaxation oscillations of a Josephson contact

The Josephson equation with constant current input has been solved in the adiabatic approximation in the limit of vanishing capacitance. In analogy to dissipative mechanical models with zero mass, the system undergoes discontinuous relaxation oscillations, except for large currents. The change in the topology of the phase trajectories manifests itself as a voltage discontinuity at a finite current. Time-average voltage-current characteristics are reported for various temperatures. © 1979 Birkhäuser-Verlag.