Competing boundary interactions in a Josephson junction network with an impurity Original Research Article

We analyze a perturbation of the boundary Sine-Gordon model where two boundary terms of different periodicities and scaling dimensions are coupled to a Kondo-like spin degree of freedom. We show that, by pertinently engineering the coupling with the spin degree of freedom, a competition between the two boundary interactions may be induced, and that this gives rise to nonperturbative phenomena, such as the emergence of novel quantum phases: indeed, we demonstrate that the strongly coupled fixed point may become unstable as a result of the “deconfinement” of a new set of phase-slip operators — the short instantons — associated with the less relevant boundary operator. We point out that a Josephson junction network with a pertinent impurity located at its center provides a physical realization of this boundary double Sine-Gordon model. For this Josephson junction network, we prove that the competition between the two boundary interactions stabilizes a robust finite coupling fixed point and, at a pertinent scale, allows for the onset of 4e superconductivity.