Coherent backscattering of an elastic wave in a chaotic cavity

Phys Rev Lett. 2000 Feb 21;84(8):1693-5. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.84.1693.

Abstract

We report the first experimental evidence of coherent backscattering enhancement for transient elastic waves propagating in a two-dimensional chaotic cavity. The time-integrated squared amplitude at the point source is twice as large as at the other points around the source. Contrary to analogous optical experiments, this effect is already clearly observable on a single realization. Especially, the spatial shape of the coherent backscattering enhancement is well predicted by a generalization of the existing theory.