Field theoretic description of the abelian and non-abelian Josephson effect

Abstract

We formulate the Josephson effect in a field theoretic language which affords a straightforward generalization to the non-abelian case. Our formalism interprets Josephson tunneling as the excitation of pseudo-Goldstone bosons. We demonstrate the formalism through the consideration of a single junction separating two regions with a purely non-abelian order parameter and a sandwich of three regions where the central region is in a distinct phase. Applications to various non-abelian symmetry breaking systems in particle and condensed matter physics are given.