Spectroscopic Evidence of the Aharonov-Casher Effect in a Cooper Pair Box

We observe the effect of the Aharonov-Casher (AC) interference on the spectrum of a superconducting system containing a symmetric Cooper pair box (CPB) and a large inductance. By varying the charge ng induced on the CPB island, we observe oscillations of the device spectrum with the period Δng=2e. These oscillations are attributed to the charge-controlled AC interference between the fluxon tunneling processes in the CPB Josephson junctions. The measured phase and charge dependences of the frequencies of the |0⟩→|1⟩ and |0⟩→|2⟩ transitions are in good agreement with our numerical simulations. Almost complete suppression of the single fluxon tunneling due to destructive interference is observed for the charge ng=e(2n+1). The CPB in this regime enables fluxon pairing, which can be used for the development of parity-protected superconducting qubits.