Interference Phenomena in Electronic Transport Through Chaotic Cavities: An Information-Theoretic Approach

The goal of this Topical Issue is to familiarize researchers studying the propagation of classical waves in random media, constituting the bulk of the readers of Waves in Random Media , with the most interesting problems and the most recent results related to the propagation of quantum waves - electrons in disordered media. On the other hand, we hope that the publication of this issue in the pages of a journal traditionally oriented toward classical wave topics will attract to it the attention of the solid state community. The usefulness of this kind of interaction (the exchange of information) is obvious, and is due both to the commonality of the problems studied and of the methods used for their solution. It is sufficient to note, for example, that the exponential smallness of the transmission coefficient for the transmission of a classical wave through a one-dimensional disordered structure, theoretically predicted in the late 1950s, is one of the manifestations of an effect well known in quantum physics as strong localization; that the famous enhanced backscattering of light has absolutely the same physical nature as the weak localization correction to the electrical conductivity of disordered metals; while random matrix theory is effective for the investigation of the statistics of the spectra of an arbitrary closed system, be it a quantum dot or a microwave resonator. Notwithstanding the fact that the articles published in this issue address only a relatively small part of the problems comprising the contemporary physics of disordered solid state systems, they clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of analytic, numerical and experimental methods used in this field. We hope that the publication of this Topical Issue will stimulate among readers of Waves in Random Media an interest in acquiring a deeper acquaintance with these methods and their applications to the solutions of problems of the propagation of classical waves in random media.