SHARP DIFFRACTION PEAKS FROM CHAOTIC STRUCTURES

Recently various models for spatially chaotic structures have been pro posed, We study the diffraction patterns produced by plane chaotic wav es incident on one-dimensional chaotic point scatterers. The spacing b etween the scatterers and the dynamics of the incident wave are given by a logistic map or standard map. We find a sharp diffraction peak wh en the incident dynamics is produced by the same map as the structure of the spatial configuration. The diffraction pattern is symmetric abo ut the incident direction only if the map dynamics is invertible. Diff raction patterns with chaotic incident waves have a large signal-to-no ise ratio and are well suited for pattern identification. We discuss p ossible applications to the scattering of microwaves from aperiodic st ructures. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.