Invariance principle for wave propagation inside inhomogeneously disordered materials

TL;DR

This paper introduces an invariance principle for wave propagation in inhomogeneously disordered materials, showing that wave statistics depend only on overall scattering strengths, regardless of detailed structure.

Contribution

It combines microwave experiments and theory to establish a universal invariance principle for wave behavior in disordered materials.

Findings

Wave statistics are independent of detailed material structure.

Wave behavior depends only on net scattering and reflection strengths.

The invariance principle applies across different sample dimensions.

Abstract

Disorder is more the rule than the exception in natural and synthetic materials. Nonetheless, wave propagation within inhomogeneously disordered materials has received scant attention. We combine microwave experiments and theory to find the spatial variation of generic wave propagation quantities in inhomogeneously disordered materials. We demonstrate that wave statistics within samples of any dimension are independent of the detailed structure of a material and depend only on the net strengths of distributed scattering and reflection between the observation point and each of the boundaries.