Experimental results on the metastability of the resistive state in Josephson junctions

The authors report experimental results on the metastability of both the V = O and the V not equal to O states. A comparative analysis of both the decay mechanisms at various values of the Josephson coupling energy allows to obtain useful informations on the relevant parameters in the lifetime expression of the V not equal to O state. In particular the authors have investigated cases where the lifetime of V = O state is comparable with the lifetime of the V not equal to O state. This situation is experimentally realized by applying an appropriate external magnetic field