Semiclassical approach to S -matrix energy correlations and time delay in chaotic systems

Abstract

The $M$-dimensional scattering matrix $S(E)$ which connects incoming to outgoing waves in a chaotic systyem is always unitary, but shows complicated dependence on the energy. This is partly encoded in correlators constructed from traces of powers of $S(E+\epsilon)S^\dagger(E-\epsilon)$, averaged over $E$, and by the statistical properties of the time delay operator, $Q(E)=-i\hbar S^\dagger dS/dE$. Using a semiclassical approach for systems with broken time reversal symmetry, we derive two kind of expressions for the energy correlators: one as a power series in $1/M$ whose coefficients are rational functions of $\epsilon$, and another as a power series in $\epsilon$ whose coefficients are rational functions of $M$. From the latter we extract an explicit formula for $\rm{Tr}(Q^n)$ which is valid for all $n$ and is in agreement with random matrix theory predictions.