Experimental Observation of Resonance-Assisted Tunneling

We present the first experimental observation of resonance-assisted tunneling, a wave phenomenon, where regular-to-chaotic tunneling is strongly enhanced by the presence of a classical nonlinear resonance chain. For this we use a microwave cavity made of oxygen free copper with the shape of a desymmetrized cosine billiard designed with a large nonlinear resonance chain in the regular region. It is opened in a region, where only chaotic dynamics takes place, such that the tunneling rate of a regular mode to the chaotic region increases the line width of the mode. Resonance-assisted tunneling is demonstrated by (i) a parametric variation and (ii) the characteristic plateau and peak structure towards the semiclassical limit.