Fidelity decay for local perturbations: microwave evidence for oscillating decay exponents

We study fidelity decay in classically chaotic microwave billiards for a local, piston-like boundary perturbation. We experimentally verify a predicted non-monotonic cross-over from the Fermi Golden Rule to the escape-rate regime of the Loschmidt echo decay with increasing local boundary perturbation. In particular, we observe pronounced oscillations of the decay rate as a function of the piston position which quantitatively agree with corresponding theoretical results based on a refined semiclassical approach for local boundary perturbations.