We present a simple measure of the conductance fluctuations in open ballistic chaotic quantum dots, extending the number of maxima method originally proposed for the statistical analysis of compound nuclear reactions. The average number of extreme points (maxima and minima) in the dimensionless conductance $T$ as a function of an arbitrary external parameter $Z$ is directly related to the autocorrelation function of $T(Z)$. The parameter $Z$ can be associated with an applied gate voltage causing shape deformation in quantum dot, an external magnetic field, the Fermi energy, etc. The average density of maxima is found to be $⟨{\rho }_Z⟩={\alpha }_Z/Z_c$, where ${\alpha }_Z$ is a universal constant and $Z_c$ is the conductance autocorrelation length, which is system specific. The analysis of $⟨{\rho }_Z⟩$ does not require large statistic samples, providing a quite amenable way to access information about parametric correlations, such as $Z_c$.

• Received 4 February 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.176807