Further understanding of doorway states in elastic systems.

In a previous work an elastic bar with a groove or notch that presents a doorway state was studied when the system was excited with 20 cycles of harmonic signals. The strength function had a Lorentzian width Γd = 1/πτd, where τd is the decay time of the prompt response. In the present paper, the doorway-state phenomenon is analyzed again for the same harmonic signals but for a very large number of cycles. The strength-function phenomenon is once more obtained, but now with a Lorentzian width Γ' which is larger than Γd. A qualitative and numerical explanation of this fact is given, leading therefore to further understanding of doorway states in elastic systems. The numerical results show a very good agreement with the values measured in the laboratory.