Fractal Conductance Fluctuations in Generic Chaotic Cavities

Abstract

It is shown that conductance fluctuations due to phase coherent ballistic transport through a chaotic cavity generically are fractals. The graph of conductance vs. externally changed parameter, e.g. magnetic field, is a fractal with dimension D=2-b/2 between 1 and 2. It is governed by the exponent b (<2) of the power law distribution P(t) ~ t^{-b} for a classically chaotic trajectory to stay in the cavity up to time t, which is typical for chaotic systems with a mixed (chaotic and regular) phase space. The phenomenon should be observable in semiconductor nanostructures and microwave billiards.