Confinement into a state with persistent current by thermal quenching of loop of Josephson junctions

We study a loop of Josephson junctions that is quenched through its critical temperature. For three or more junctions, symmetry breaking states can be achieved without thermal activation, in spite of the fact that the relaxation time is practically constant when the critical temperature is approached from above. The probability for these states decreases with quenching time, but, for a large number of junctions, cooling does not have to be fast. For this case, we evaluate the standard deviation of the induced flux. Our results are consistent with the available experimental data.