  We make a distinction between the spectroscopic and the mesoscopic
conductance of closed systems. We show that the latter is not simply related to
the Landauer conductance of the corresponding open system. A new ingredient in
the theory is related to the non-universal structure of the perturbation matrix
which is generic for quantum chaotic systems. These structures may created
bottlenecks that suppress the diffusion in energy space, and hence the rate of
energy absorption. The resulting effect is not merely quantitative: For a
ring-dot system we find that a smaller Landauer conductance implies a smaller
spectroscopic conductance, while the mesoscopic conductance increases. Our
considerations open the way towards a realistic theory of dissipation in closed
mesoscopic ballistic devices.
