Coherent elastic scattering trajectory simulation

A method for trajectory simulation is proposed which takes coherent scattering as well as the structure (granularity) of the scattering medium into account. The simulation generates a sequence of inelastic events localized to single scatterers; this sequence is the trajectory. The location of an inelastic event in the sequence is sampled by means of probabilities calculated from a wavefield created by coherent elastic scattering of the wave emitted from the previous event. The method is applied to the case of a particle scattered in clusters of point scatterers with randomly varying positions, simulating scattering in amorphous matter. Effects of coherence and structure on the trajectory simulated spatial distributions of inelastic events are demonstrated. Agreement with conventional trajectory simulation is observed when short-range order is absent and the wavelength is about equal to or smaller than the average distance between nearest neighbour scatterers.