Quasi-Scarred Resonances in a Spiral-Shaped Microcavity

Abstract

We study resonance patterns of a spiral-shaped dielectric microcavity with chaotic ray dynamics. Many resonance patterns of this microcavity, with refractive indices $n=2$ and 3, exhibit strong localization of simple geometric shape, and we call them {\em quasi-scarred resonances} in the sense that there is, unlike the conventional scarring, no underlying periodic orbits. It is shown that the formation of quasi-scarred pattern can be understood in ter ms of ray dynamical probability distributions and wave properties like uncertainty and interference.