Scattering from Spatially Localized Chaotic and Disordered Systems

A version of scattering theory that was developed many years ago to treat nuclear scattering processes, has provided a powerful tool to study universality in scattering processes involving open quantum systems with underlying classically chaotic dynamics. Recently, it has been used to make random matrix theory predictions concerning the statistical properties of scattering resonances in mesoscopic electron waveguides and electromagnetic waveguides. We provide a simple derivation of this scattering theory and we compare its predictions to those obtained from an exactly solvable scattering model; and we use it to study the scattering of a particle wave from a random potential. This method may prove useful in distinguishing the effects of chaos from the effects of disorder in real scattering processes.