Coherent oscillations in a Cooper-pair box

This paper is devoted to an analysis of the experiment by Nakamura {\it et al.} (Nature {\bf 398}, 786 (1999)) on the quantum state control in Josephson junctions devices. By considering the relevant processes involved in the detection of the charge state of the box and a realistic description of the gate pulse we are able to analyze some aspects of the experiment (like the amplitude of the measurement current) in a quantitative way.