Characterization of Fluctuations of Impedance and Scattering Matrices in Wave Chaotic Scattering

In wave chaotic scattering, statistical fluctuations of the scattering matrix $S$ and the impedance matrix $Z$ depend both on universal properties and on nonuniversal details of how the scatterer is coupled to external channels. This paper considers the impedance and scattering variance ratios, $VR_z$ and $VR_s$, where $VR_z=Var[Z_{ij}]/\{Var[Z_{ii}]Var[Z_{jj}] \}^{1/2}$, $VR_s=Var[S_{ij}]/\{Var[S_{ii}]Var[S_{jj}] \}^{1/2}$, and $Var[.]$ denotes variance. $VR_z$ is shown to be a universal function of distributed losses within the scatterer. That is, $VR_z$ is independent of nonuniversal coupling details. This contrasts with $VR_s$ for which universality applies only in the large loss limit. Explicit results are given for $VR_z$ for time reversal symmetric and broken time reversal symmetric systems. Experimental tests of the theory are presented using data taken from scattering measurements on a chaotic microwave cavity.