Experimental investigation of the elastic enhancement factor in a microwave cavity emulating a chaotic scattering system with varying openness.

Abstract

A characteristic of chaotic scattering is the excess of elastic over inelastic scattering processes quantified by the elastic enhancement factor F_{M}(T,γ), which depends on the number of open channels M, the average transmission coefficient T, and internal absorption γ. Using a microwave cavity with the shape of a chaotic quarter-bow-tie billiard, we study the elastic enhancement factor experimentally as a function of the openness, which is defined as the ratio of the Heisenberg time and the Weisskopf (dwell) time and is directly related to M and the size of internal absorption. In the experiments 2≤M≤9 open channels with an average transmission coefficient 0.34<T<0.98 and moderate internal absorption strength in the range of γ=0.9-2.8 are achieved. The experimental results for the enhancement factor are shown to agree well with random matrix theory predictions. Furthermore, in order to corroborate the wave-chaotic features of the microwave system, the spectral fluctuation properties are studied for M=2 channels. Agreement with those exhibited by typical, fully chaotic systems is illustrated, which is exemplary for the nearest-neighbor spacing distribution and the average power spectrum. Here we take into account the incompleteness of the sequence of resonance frequencies ascribed to the small yet nonvanishing internal absorption.