Mixing of wavefunctions in rectangular microwave billiards

Abstract:

A set-up is described allowing the automatic registration of wavefunctions of quasi-two-dimensional microwave billiards of arbitrary shape. Tests of the apparatus with rectangular shaped billiards showed that a precision of some percent in the wavefunction amplitudes can be obtained, as far as isolated resonances are considered. For the case of overlapping resonances, however, the measurement yields wavefunctions which are close to a symmetric and an antisymmetric linear combination of the original rectangle eigenfunctions. The cause for this at first sight surprising result is discussed.