  We present the first study of superconducting nanowires shunted with an
external resistor, geared towards understanding and controlling coherence and
dissipation in nanowires. The dynamics is probed by measuring the evolution of
the V-I characteristics and the distributions of switching and retrapping
currents upon varying the shunt resistor and temperature. Theoretical analysis
of the experiments indicates that as the value of the shunt resistance is
decreased, the dynamics turns more coherent presumably due to stabilization of
phase-slip centers in the wire and furthermore the switching current approaches
the Bardeen's prediction for equilibrium depairing current. By a detailed
comparison between theory and experimental, we make headway into identifying
regimes in which the quasi-one-dimensional wire can effectively be described by
a zero-dimensional circuit model analogous to the RCSJ (resistively and
capacitively shunted Josephson junction) model of Stewart and McCumber. Besides
its fundamental significance, our study has implications for a range of
promising technological applications.
