SIGNATURE OF NON-NEWTONIAN ORBITS IN RAY-SPLITTING CAVITIES

Ray splitting is a universal phenomenon that occurs in all wave system s with sharp interfaces. A key consequence of ray splitting is the occ urrence of non-Newtonian periodic orbits whose presence can he reveale d in the oscillating part of the density of states. We use thin dielec tric-and metal-loaded microwave cavities to identify experimentally th e signature of non-Newtonian periodic orbits caused by ray splitting a t sharp interfaces and corroborate all our experimental results with d etailed numerical computations and semiclassical theory. For two-dimen sional ray-splitting problems the electromagnetic Helmholtz and quanta l Schrodinger equations are equivalent. Thus our results are directly relevant to quantum chaos studies.