Interference effect heat conductance in a Josephson junction and its detection in an rf SQUID

The energy current through a superconductor-insulator-superconductor Josephson junction consists of a quasiparticle current, an interference current, and a pair current. The quasiparticle part represents the normal dissipative heat current. This part is shown to have a unique temperature dependence. The other two parts depend on the phase drop across the junction theta. When the junction is biased by a fixed temperature drop, the interference current can flow in either direction, depending on the sign of cos theta. This gives rise to an effect in which the total heat current oscillates with the phase drop across the junction. We suggest an experimental setup involving an rf superconducting quantum interference device, which is designed to measure these effects.