Experimental study of the distributions of off-diagonal scattering-matrix elements of quantum graphs with symplectic symmetry

Abstract

We report on experimental studies of the distribution of the off-diagonal elements of the scattering matrix of open microwave networks with symplectic symmetry and a chaotic wave dynamics. These consist of two geometrically identical subgraphs with unitary symmetry described by complex conjugate Hamiltonians, that are coupled by a pair of bonds. The results are compared to random-matrix theory predictions obtained on the basis of the Heidelberg approach for the scattering matrix of open quantum-chaotic systems. We demonstrate that deviations from random-matrix theory predictions observed in the distributions may be attributed to the fact that the subgraphs are not fully connected.