Effect of phase breaking on quantum transport through chaotic cavities

We investigate the effects of phase-breaking events on electronic transport through ballistic chaotic cavities. We simulate phase breaking by a fictitious lead connecting the cavity to a phase-randomizing reservoir and introduce a statistical description for the total scattering matrix, including the additional lead. For strong phase breaking, the average and variance of the conductance are calculated analytically. Combining these results with those in the absence of phase breaking, we propose an interpolation formula, show that it is an excellent description of random-matrix numerical calculations, and obtain good agreement with several recent experiments.