Current-voltage characteristic of the Josephson chaos

Perturbed correction to the heteroclinic orbit of a rf-driven Josephson sys tem is derived from a direct perturbation technique. Theoretical analysis r eveals that boundedness conditions of the orbit contain Melnikov criterion for the onset of chaos. Current-voltage characteristic associated with the bounded chaotic orbit is obtained, which implies current steps and shows qu alitative agreement between the analytical results and experimental data. T he results supply a more detailed analytical criterion for chaos in the sys tem. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.