Diffractive Orbits in Quantum Billiards

Natasha Leporé

Manan Jain

王德华, 于永江, 林圣路

Jun, Lü

Nicolas Pavloff, C. Schmit

We study diffractive effects in two-dimensional polygonal billiards. We derive an analytical trace formula accounting for the role of the nonclassical diffractive orbits in the quantum spectrum. As an illustration, the method is applied to a triangular billiard.

Jesse S. Hersch, Michael R. Haggerty, Eric J. Heller

We demonstrate experimentally the existence and significance of diffractive orbits in an open microwave billiard. Orbits that diffract off a sharp edge strongly influence the conduction spectrum, especially in the regime where there are no stable classical orbits. On resonance, the wave functions are influenced by both classical and diffractive orbits. Off resonance, the wave functions are determined by the constructive interference of multiple transient orbits. The experimental results agree well with quantum computations and with a semiclassical theory that incorporates diffraction.