  We show numerically that, in a Josephson ladder with periodic boundary
conditions and subject to a suitable transverse magnetic field, a vortex
excitation can spontaneously break up into two or more fractional excitations.
If the ladder has N plaquettes, and N is divisible by an integer q, then in an
applied transverse field of 1/q flux quanta per plaquette the ground state is a
regular pattern of one fluxon every q plaquettes. When one additional fluxon is
added to the ladder, it breaks up into q fractional fluxons, each carrying 1/q
units of vorticity. The fractional fluxons are basically walls between
different domains of the ground state of the underlying 1/q lattice. The
fractional fluxons are all depinned at the same applied current and move as a
unit. For certain applied fields and ladder lengths, we show that there are
isolated fractional fluxons. It is shown that the fractional fluxons would
produce a time-averaged voltage related in a characteristic way to the ac
voltage frequency.
