Properties of the single-electron box at arbitrary temperature

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Abstract
The behavior of a mesoscopic tunnel junction connected in series with an ultrasmall capacitor is investigated. At high temperatures, the functional integral representation of the partition function is evaluated semiclassically. At low temperatures, nontrivial trajectories with minimal action appear and the partition function is evaluated accordingly. The path integral is further calculated analytically in the low temperature limit and in the single sluggish-phase-change regime for large tunnel conductance. Otherwise it is treated numerically. The suppression of Coulomb charging effects is discussed for various parameters.