Lifetime statistics in chaotic dielectric microresonators

We discuss the statistical properties of lifetimes of electromagnetic eigenmodes in dielectric microresonators with fully chaotic ray dynamics. Using the example of a resonator of stadium geometry, we find that a recently proposed random-matrix model very well describes the lifetime statistics of long-lived resonances, provided that two effective parameters are appropriately renormalized. This renormalization is linked to the formation of anomalously short-lived resonances, a mechanism also known from the fractal Weyl law and the resonance trapping phenomenon.