Resonance widths in open microwave cavities studied by harmonic inversion

From the measurement of a reflection spectrum of an open microwave cavity the poles of the scattering matrix in the complex plane have been determined. The resonances have been extracted by means of the harmonic inversion method. By this it became possible to resolve the resonances in a regime where the line widths exceed the mean level spacing up to a factor of 10, a value inaccessible in experiments up to now. The obtained experimental distributions of line widths were found to be in perfect agreement with predictions from random matrix theory when wall absorption and fluctuations caused by couplings to additional channels are considered.