Investigation of the diagonal elements of the Wigner’s reaction matrix for networks with violated time reversal invariance

The distributions of the diagonal elements of the Wigner’s reaction $$\hat{K}$$ K ˆ matrix for open systems with violated time reversal T invariance in the case of large absorption are for the first time experimentally studied. The Wigner’s reaction matrix links the properties of chaotic systems with the scattering processes in the asymptotic region. Microwave networks consisting of microwave circulators were used in the experiment to simulate quantum graphs with violated T invariance. The distributions of the diagonal elements of the reaction $$\hat{K}$$ K ˆ matrix were experimentally evaluated by measuring of the two-port scattering matrix $$\hat{S}$$ S ˆ . The violation of T invariance in the networks with large absorption was demonstrated by calculating the enhancement factor W of the matrix $$\hat{S}$$ S ˆ . Our experimental results are in very good agreement with the analytic ones attained for the Gaussian unitary ensemble in the random matrix theory. The obtained results suggest that the distributions P(ʋ) and P(u) of the imaginary and the real parts of the diagonal elements of the Wigner’s reaction $$\hat{K}$$ K ˆ matrix together with the enhancement factor W can be used as a powerful tool for identification of systems with violated T symmetry and quantification of their absorption.