Universal transport properties of open microwave cavities with and without time-reversal symmetry.

We measure the transmission through asymmetric and reflection-symmetric chaotic microwave cavities in dependence on the number of attached waveguides. Ferrite cylinders are placed inside the cavities to break time-reversal symmetry. The phase-breaking properties of the ferrite and its range of applicability are discussed in detail. We use the random matrix theory accounting for absorption effects to calculate the universal distribution of transmission coefficients T and their energy derivatives dT/depsilon. Using the absorption strength as a fitting parameter, we find good agreement between universal transmission fluctuations predicted by the theory and the experimental data.

Geometry-dependent scattering through quantum billiards: experiment and theory.

We present experimental studies of geometry-specific quantum scattering in microwave billiards of a given shape. We perform full quantum-mechanical scattering calculations and find excellent agreement with experimental results. We also carry out semiclassical calculations where the conductance is given as a sum over all classical trajectories between the leads, each of the trajectories carrying a quantum-mechanical phase. We unambiguously demonstrate that the characteristic frequencies of the oscillations in the transmission and reflection amplitudes t and r are related to the length distribution of the classical trajectories between the leads, whereas the frequencies of the probabilities T=/t/(2) and R=/r/(2) can be understood in terms of the length difference distribution in the pairs of classical trajectories. We also discuss the effect of nonclassical "ghost" trajectories, i.e., trajectories that include classically forbidden reflection off the lead mouths.

Transmission fluctuations in chaotic microwave billiards with and without time-reversal symmetry.

Transmission fluctuations have been studied in a microwave billiard in dependence to the number of attached wave guides on its entrance and exit. To investigate the influence of breaking time-reversal symmetry, ferrite cylinders were introduced into the billiard. The obtained transmission intensity distributions are compared with predictions from the random matrix theory. Because of the strong absorption caused by the ferrites, the existing statistical scattering theories had to be modified, by incorporating a number of additional absorbing scattering channels.