Homometry in the light of coherent beams

Abstract

Two systems are homometric if they are indistinguishable by diffraction. We first make a distinction between Bragg and diffuse scattering homometry, and show that in the last case, coherent diffraction can allow the diffraction diagrams to be differentiated. The study of the Rudin-Shapiro sequence, homometric to random sequences, allows one to manipulate independently two-point and four-point correlation functions, and to show their effect on the statistics of speckle patterns. Consequences for the study of real materials is discussed.