title: First experimental evidence for chaos-assisted tunneling in a microwave annular billiard
abstract: We report on first experimental signatures for chaos-assisted tunneling in a two-dimensional annular billiard. Measurements of microwave spectra from a superconducting cavity with high frequency resolution are combined with electromagnetic field distributions experimentally determined from a normal conducting twin cavity with high spatial resolution to resolve eigenmodes with properly identified quantum numbers. Distributions of quasidoublet splittings serve as basic observables for the tunneling between whispering gallery-type modes localized to congruent, but distinct tori which are coupled weakly to irregular eigenstates associated with the chaotic region in phase space.
authors.affiliation: Institut fur Kernphysik, Technische Universitat Darmstadt, D-64289 Darmstadt, Germany.
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Dembowski
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Graf
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Heine
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hofferbert
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Rehfeld
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Richter