Theory of enhanced interlayer tunneling in optically driven high T_c superconductors

Motivated by recent pump-probe experiments indicating enhanced coherent $c$-axis transport in underdoped YBCO, we study Josephson junctions periodically driven by optical pulses. We propose a mechanism for this observation by demonstrating that a parametrically driven Josephson junction shows an enhanced imaginary part of the low-frequency conductivity when the driving frequency is above the plasma frequency, implying an effectively enhanced Josephson coupling. We generalize this analysis to a bilayer system of Josephson junctions modeling YBCO. Again, the Josephson coupling is enhanced when the pump frequency is blue-detuned to either of the two plasma frequencies of the material. We show that the emergent driven state is a genuine, non-equilibrium superconducting state, in which equilibrium relations between the Josephson coupling, current fluctuations, and the critical current no longer hold.