Three dimensional structure from intensity correlations

TL;DR

This paper presents methods to determine 3D particle structures from x-ray intensity correlations, including alignment, phase problem clarification, data quality assessment, and simultaneous reconstruction algorithms.

Contribution

It introduces novel techniques for 3D structure determination from intensity correlations, addressing alignment, phase retrieval, data validation, and joint reconstruction.

Findings

Successful determination of 3D structures with known particle alignment.

A data reduction scheme for assessing data integrity before reconstruction.

An algorithm for simultaneous intensity and density reconstruction.

Abstract

We develop the analysis of x-ray intensity correlations from dilute ensembles of identical particles in a number of ways. First, we show that the 3D particle structure can be determined if the particles can be aligned with respect to a single axis having a known angle with respect to the incident beam. Second, we clarify the phase problem in this setting and introduce a data reduction scheme that assesses the integrity of the data even before the particle reconstruction is attempted. Finally, we describe an algorithm that reconstructs intensity and particle density simultaneously, thereby making maximal use of the available constraints.