Building and destroying symmetry in 1-D elastic systems

Abstract

Abstract. Locally periodic rods, which show approximate invariance with respect to translations, are constructed by joining N unit cells. The spectrum then shows a band spectrum. We then break the local periodicity by including one or more defects in the system. When the defects follow a certain definite prescription, an analog of the Wannier-Stark ladders is gotten; when the defects are random, an elastic rod showing Anderson localization is obtained. In all cases experimental values match the theoretical predictions.

Resonance width distribution for open quantum systems

“…Unfortunately, we still do not have experimental tests for the full distribution (8). Although in nuclear physics it is hard to make such a detailed analysis for higher energies and greater degree of resonance overlap, the systems with tunable chaos, such as microwave cavities, acoustic blocks, or even elastomechanical devices [30], seem to provide appropriate tools for such studies.…”