Noise-tunable nonlinearity in a dispersively coupled diffusion-resonator system using superconducting circuits

The harmonic oscillator is one of the most widely used model systems in physics: an indispensable theoretical tool in a variety of fields. It is well known that an otherwise linear oscillator can attain novel and nonlinear features through interaction with another dynamical system. We investigate such an interacting system: a superconducting LC-circuit dispersively coupled to a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID). We find that the SQUID phase behaves as a classical two-level system, whose two states correspond to one linear and one nonlinear regime for the LC-resonator. As a result, the circuit’s response to forcing can become multistable. The strength of the nonlinearity is tuned by the level of noise in the system, and increases with decreasing noise. This tunable nonlinearity could potentially find application in the field of sensitive detection, whereas increased understanding of the classical harmonic oscillator is relevant for studies of the quantum-to-classical crossover of Jaynes-Cummings systems.