Abstract:
We present an experimental setup based on the normal modes of vibrating soap films which shows quantum features of integrable and chaotic billiards. In particular, we obtain the so-called scars-narrow linear regions with high probability along classical periodic orbits-for the classically chaotic billiards. We show that these scars are also visible at low frequencies. Finally, we suggest some applications of our experimental setup in other related two-dimensional wave phenomena. (C) 1998 American Association of Physics Teachers.