  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.
