Experimental investigation of the enhancement factor for microwave irregular networks with preserved and broken time reversal symmetry in the presence of absorption.

We present the results of the experimental study of the two-port scattering matrix S[over ] elastic enhancement factor W{S,beta} for microwave irregular networks simulating quantum graphs with preserved and broken time reversal symmetry in the presence of moderate and strong absorption. In the experiment, quantum graphs with preserved time reversal symmetry were simulated by microwave networks which were built of coaxial cables and attenuators connected by joints. Absorption in the networks was controlled by the length of microwave cables and the use of microwave attenuators. In order to simulate quantum graphs with broken time reversal symmetry we used the microwave networks with microwave circulators. We show that the experimental results obtained for networks with moderate and strong absorption are in good agreement with the ones obtained within the framework of random matrix theory.