EXPERIMENTAL IDENTIFICATION OF NON-NEWTONIAN ORBITS PRODUCED BY RAY SPLITTING IN A DIELECTRIC-LOADED MICROWAVE CAVITY

We use a thin dielectric-loaded microwave cavity to identify experimen tally the signature of non-Newtonian periodic orbits caused by ray spl itting at sharp, dielectric interfaces. In our experiments non-Newtoni an orbits manifest themselves as distinctive peaks in the Fourier tran sform of the frequency spectrum, which cannot be assigned to any Newto nian periodic orbits. Because the electromagnetic Helmholtz and quanta l Schrodinger equations are equivalent in two dimensions, our results are directly relevant to quantum chaos studies.