The diffraction of various random subsets of the integer lattice $\mathbb{Z}^{d}$, such as the coin tossing and related systems, are well understood. Here, we go one important step beyond and consider random point sets in $\mathbb{R}^{d}$. We present several systems with an effective stochastic interaction that still allow for explicit calculations of the autocorrelation and the diffraction measure. We concentrate on one-dimensional examples for illustrative purposes, and briefly indicate possible generalisations to higher dimensions.
In particular, we discuss the stationary Poisson process in $\mathbb{R}^{d}$ and the renewal process on the line. The latter permits a unified approach to a rather large class of one-dimensional structures, including random tilings. Moreover, we present some stationary point processes that are derived from the classical random matrix ensembles as introduced in the pioneering work of Dyson and Ginibre. Their re-consideration from the diffraction point of view improves the intuition on systems with randomness and mixed spectra.
We give an introduction into diffraction theory for aperiodic order. We focus on an approach via dynamical systems and the phenomenon of pure point diffraction. We review recent results and sketch proofs. We then present a new uniform Wiener/Wintner type result generalizing various earlier results of this type.
We briefly review the diffraction of quasicrystals and then give an elementary alternative proof of the diffraction formula for regular cut-and-project sets, which is based on Bochner's theorem from Fourier analysis. This clarifies a common view that the diffraction of a quasicrystal is determined by the diffraction of its underlying lattice. To illustrate our approach, we will also treat a number of well-known explicitly solvable examples.
Limit periodic point sets are aperiodic structures with pure point diffraction supported on a countably, but not finitely generated Fourier module that is based on a lattice and certain integer multiples of it. Examples are cut and project sets with p-adic internal spaces. We illustrate this by explicit results for the diffraction measures of two examples with 2-adic internal spaces. The first and well-known example is the period doubling sequence in one dimension, which is based on the period doubling substitution rule. The second example is a weighted planar point set that is derived from th…
Regular model sets, describing the point positions of ideal quasicrystallographic tilings, are mathematical models of quasicrystals. An important result in mathematical diffraction theory of regular model sets, which are defined on locally compact Abelian groups, is the pure pointedness of the diffraction spectrum. We derive an extension of this result, valid for dense point sets in Euclidean space, which is motivated by the study of quasicrystallographic random tilings.
Stochastic point processes relevant to the theory of long-range aperiodic order are considered that display diffraction spectra of mixed type, with special emphasis on explicitly computable cases together with a unified approach of reasonable generality. The latter is based on the classical theory of point processes and the Palm distribution. Several pairs of autocorrelation and diffraction measures are discussed which show a duality structure analogous to that of the Poisson summation formula for lattice Dirac combs.
We prove that the diffraction formula for regular model sets is equivalent to the Poisson Summation Formula for the underlying lattice. This is achieved using Fourier analysis of unbounded measures on locally compact abelian groups as developed by Argabright and de Lamadrid. We also obtain diffraction results for certain classes of non-regular so-called weak model sets.
The inverse problem of diffraction theory in essence amounts to the reconstruction of the atomic positions of a solid from its diffraction image. From a mathematical perspective, this is a notoriously difficult problem, even in the idealised situation of perfect diffraction from an infinite structure. Here, the problem is analysed via the autocorrelation measure of the underlying point set, where two point sets are called homometric when they share the same autocorrelation. For the class of mathematical quasicrystals within a given cut and project scheme, the homometry problem becomes equivale…
The diffraction of stochastic point sets, both Bernoulli and Markov, and of random tilings with crystallographic symmetries is investigated in rigorous terms. In particular, we derive the diffraction spectrum of 1D random tilings, of stochastic product tilings built from cuboids, and of planar random tilings based on solvable dimer models, augmented by a brief outline of the diffraction from the classical 2D Ising lattice gas. We also give a summary of the measure theoretic approach to mathematical diffraction theory which underlies the unique decomposition of the diffraction spectrum into its…
We prove that the set of visible points of any lattice of dimension at least 2 has pure point diffraction spectrum, and we determine the diffraction spectrum explicitly. This settles previous speculation on the exact nature of the diffraction in this situation, see math-ph/9903046 and references therein. Using similar methods we show the same result for the 1-dimensional set of k-th power free integers with k at least 2. Of special interest is the fact that neither of these sets is a Delone set --- each has holes of unbounded inradius. We provide a careful formulation of the mathematical ideas…
The diffraction spectrum of the dart-rhombus random tiling of the plane is derived in rigorous terms. Using the theory of dimer models, it is shown that it consists of Bragg peaks and an absolutely continuous diffuse background, but no singular continuous component. The Bragg part is given explicitly.
The scaling behaviour of the diffraction intensity near the origin is investigated for (partially) ordered systems, with an emphasis on illustrative, rigorous results. This is an established method to detect and quantify the fluctuation behaviour known under the term hyperuniformity. Here, we consider one-dimensional systems with pure point, singular continuous and absolutely continuous diffraction spectra, which include perfectly ordered cut and project and inflation point sets as well as systems with stochastic disorder.
Particle models with finitely many types of particles are considered, both on $\mathbb{Z}^d$ and on discrete point sets of finite local complexity. Such sets include many standard examples of aperiodic order such as model sets or certain substitution systems. The particle gas is defined by an interaction potential and a corresponding Gibbs measure. Under some reasonable conditions on the underlying point set and the potential, we show that the corresponding diffraction measure almost surely exists and consists of a pure point part and an absolutely continuous part with continuous density. In p…
Among the many families of nonperiodic tilings known so far, SCD tilings are still a bit mysterious. Here, we determine the diffraction spectra of point sets derived from SCD tilings and show that they have no absolutely continuous part, that they have a uniformly discrete pure point part on the z-axis, and that they are otherwise supported on a set of concentric cylinder surfaces around this axis. For SCD tilings with additional properties, more detailed results are given.
We consider diffraction at random point scatterers on general discrete point sets in $\R^ν$, restricted to a finite volume. We allow for random amplitudes and random dislocations of the scatterers. We investigate the speed of convergence of the random scattering measures applied to an observable towards its mean, when the finite volume tends to infinity. We give an explicit universal large deviation upper bound that is exponential in the number of scatterers. The rate is given in terms of a universal function that depends on the point set only through the minimal distance between points, and o…
We consider the $k$th-power-free points in $n$-dimensional lattices and explicitly calculate their entropies and diffraction spectra. This is of particular interest since these sets have holes of unbounded inradius.
This review revolves around the question which general distribution of scatterers (in a Euclidean space) results in a pure point diffraction spectrum. Firstly, we treat mathematical diffration theory and state conditions under which such a distribution has pure point diffraction. We explain how a cut and project scheme naturally appears in this context and then turn our attention to the special situation of model sets and lattice substitution systems. As an example, we analyse the paperfolding sequence. In the last part, we summarize some aspects of stochastic point sets, with focus both on st…
This paper deals with certain dynamical systems built from point sets and, more generally, measures on locally compact Abelian groups. These systems arise in the study of quasicrystals and aperiodic order, and important subclasses of them exhibit pure point diffraction spectra. We discuss the relevant framework and recall fundamental results and examples. In particular, we show that pure point diffraction is stable under ``equivariant'' local perturbations and discuss various examples,including deformed model sets. A key step in the proof of stability consists in transforming the problem into …
We show that for multi-colored Delone point sets with finite local complexity and uniform cluster frequencies the notions of pure point diffraction and pure point dynamical spectrum are equivalent.
The well-known plastic number substitution gives rise to a ternary inflation tiling of the real line whose inflation factor is the smallest Pisot-Vijayaraghavan number. The corresponding dynamical system has pure point spectrum, and the associated control point sets can be described as regular model sets whose windows in two-dimensional internal space are Rauzy fractals with a complicated structure. Here, we calculate the resulting pure point diffraction measure via a Fourier matrix cocycle, which admits a closed formula for the Fourier transform of the Rauzy fractals, via a rapidly converging…
Using the Palm measure notion, we prove the existence of the diffraction measure of all stationary and ergodic point processes. We get precise expressions of those measures in the case of specific processes : stochastic subsets of Z^d, sets obtained by the ``cut-and-project'' method.
Meyer sets have a relatively dense set of Bragg peaks and for this reason they may be considered as basic mathematical examples of (aperiodic) crystals. In this paper we investigate the pure point part of the diffraction of Meyer sets in more detail. The results are of two kinds. First we show that given a Meyer set and any intensity a less than the maximum intensity of its Bragg peaks, the set of Bragg peaks whose intensity exceeds a is itself a Meyer set (in the Fourier space). Second we show that if a Meyer set is modified by addition and removal of points in such a way that its density is …
A class of translation bounded complex measures, which have the form of weighted Dirac combs, on locally compact Abelian groups is investigated. Given such a Dirac comb, we are interested in its diffraction spectrum which emerges as the Fourier transform of the autocorrelation measure. We present a sufficient set of conditions to ensure that the diffraction measure is a pure point measure. Simultaneously, we establish a natural link to the theory of the cut and project formalism and to the theory of almost periodic measures. Our conditions are general enough to cover the known theory of model …
In this work we consider translation-bounded measures over a locally compact Abelian group $\mathbb{G}$, with particular interest for their so-called diffraction. Given such a measure $Λ$, its diffraction $\widehatγ$ is another measure on the Pontryagin dual $\widehat{\mathbb{G}}$, whose decomposition into the sum $\widehatγ = \widehatγ_{\mathrm{p}}+ \widehatγ_{\mathrm{c}}$ of its atomic and continuous parts is central in diffraction theory. The problem we address here is whether the above decomposition of $\widehatγ$ lifts to $Λ$ itself, that is to say, whether there exists a decomposition $Λ…
In this project we show the existence of arbitrary length arithmetic progressions in model sets and Meyer sets in the Euclidean $d$-space. We prove a van der Waerden type theorem for Meyer sets. We show that pure point subsets of Meyer sets with positive density and pure point diffraction contain arithmetic progressions of arbitrary length.
We discuss several examples of point processes (all taken from Hough, Krishnapur, Peres, Virág (2009)) for which the autocorrelation and diffraction measures can be calculated explicitly. These include certain classes of determinantal and permanental point processes, as well as an isometry-invariant point process that arises as the zero set of a Gaussian random analytic function.
Orientation mapping is a widely used technique for revealing the microstructure of a polycrystalline sample. The crystalline orientation at each point in the sample is determined by analysis of the diffraction pattern, a process known as pattern indexing. A recent development in pattern indexing is the use of a brute-force approach, whereby diffraction patterns are simulated for a large number of crystalline orientations, and compared against the experimentally observed diffraction pattern in order to determine the most likely orientation. Whilst this method can robust identify orientations in…
The present state of mathematical diffraction theory for systems with continuous spectral components is reviewed and extended. We begin with a discussion of various characteristic examples with singular or absolutely continuous diffraction, and then continue with a more general exposition of a systematic approach via stationary stochastic point processes. Here, the intensity measure of the Palm measure takes the role of the autocorrelation measure in the traditional approach. We furthermore introduce a `Palm-type' measure for general complex-valued random measures that are stationary and ergod…
Wildberger has introduced the method to construct a hermitian discrete hypergroup from a random walk on a graph. We will apply his method to an open quantum random walk (OQRW) on a distance set, and show that any discrete hypergroup which is not necessary hermitian is realized by an OQRW on a distance set. We will investigate distributions of OQRWs on distance sets in the view point of hypergroups.
Letting $T$ denote an ergodic transformation of the unit interval and letting $f \colon [0,1)\to \mathbb{R}$ denote an observable, we construct the $f$-weighted return time measure $μ_y$ for a reference point $y\in[0,1)$ as the weighted Dirac comb with support in $\mathbb{Z}$ and weights $f \circ T^z(y)$ at $z\in\mathbb{Z}$, and if $T$ is non-invertible, then we set the weights equal to zero for all $z < 0$. Given such a Dirac comb, we are interested in its diffraction spectrum which emerges from the Fourier transform of its autocorrelation and analyse it for the dependence on the underlying t…
We provide a framework for studying randomly coloured point sets in a locally compact, second-countable space on which a metrisable unimodular group acts continuously and properly. We first construct and describe an appropriate dynamical system for uniformly discrete uncoloured point sets. For point sets of finite local complexity, we characterise ergodicity geometrically in terms of pattern frequencies. The general framework allows to incorporate a random colouring of the point sets. We derive an ergodic theorem for randomly coloured point sets with finite-range dependencies. Special attentio…
Given a cut and project scheme and a pre-compact Borel window we show that almost surely all positions of the window give rise to point sets with Besicovitch almost periodic Dirac combs. In particular, all those positions lead to pure point diffractive point sets with autocorrelation given by the covariogram of the window and diffraction given by the square of the Fourier transform of the window. Moreover the Fourier--Bohr coefficients exist and the intensity of the Bragg peaks is given by their absolute value square. We show the existence of an ergodic measure with pure point dynamical spectr…
We introduce a generalization of the extended Airy kernel with two sets of real parameters. We show that this kernel arises in the edge scaling limit of correlation kernels of determinantal processes related to a directed percolation model and to an ensemble of random matrices.
It is shown that the topologies and nestings of the zero and nodal sets of random (Gaussian) band limited functions have universal laws of distribution. Qualitative features of the supports of these distributions are determined. In particular the results apply to random monochromatic waves and to random real algebraic hyper-surfaces in projective space.
This note concerns the topology of the connected components of the zero sets of monochromatic random waves on compact Riemannian manifolds without boundary. In [SW] it is shown that these are distributed according to a universal measure on the space of smooth topological types. Our goal is to determine the support of this measure.
