Quantum phase transitions in superconductor–quantum-dot–superconductor Josephson structures with attractive intradot interaction
We consider a quantum dot with intradot attractive interaction sandwiched between two superconducting leads. We show that the system possesses quantum phase transitions of fermion parity as long as an external magnetic field is present. Due to the superconducting proximity effects, the possible electronic states for the embedded quantum dot are spin-polarized states with odd occupation and BCS-like states with even occupation. In this work, we adopt a self-consistent theoretical method to extend our considerations beyond the superconducting atomic limit to numerically investigate implications of an attractive interaction in electronic structures. We discuss the difference between results obtained in and away from the atomic limit. We find a reentrant behavior in the energy phase diagram when $\Delta$ is an order of magnitude larger than the hybridization strength. We also consider the Josephson current phase relations and find a number of examples showing the $0-\pi$ phase transitions that may offer important switching effects.