Autocorrelation - Applications

Applications

One application of autocorrelation is the measurement of optical spectra and the measurement of very-short-duration light pulses produced by lasers, both using optical autocorrelators.

Autocorrelation is used to analyze Dynamic light scattering data, which notably enables to determine the particle size distributions of nanometer-sized particles or micelles suspended in a fluid. A laser shining into the mixture produces a speckle pattern that results from the motion of the particles. Autocorrelation of the signal can be analyzed in terms of the diffusion of the particles. From this, knowing the viscosity of the fluid, the sizes of the particles can be calculated.

The Small-angle X-ray scattering intensity of a nanostructured system is the Fourier transform of the spatial autocorrelation function of the electron density.

In optics, normalized autocorrelations and cross-correlations give the degree of coherence of an electromagnetic field.

In signal processing, autocorrelation can give information about repeating events like musical beats (for example, to determine tempo) or pulsar frequencies, though it cannot tell the position in time of the beat. It can also be used to estimate the pitch of a musical tone.

In music recording, autocorrelation is used as a pitch detection algorithm prior to vocal processing, as a distortion effect or to eliminate undesired mistakes and inaccuracies.

Autocorrelation in space rather than time, via the Patterson function, is used by X-ray diffractionists to help recover the "Fourier phase information" on atom positions not available through diffraction alone.

In statistics, spatial autocorrelation between sample locations also helps one estimate mean value uncertainties when sampling a heterogeneous population.

The SEQUEST algorithm for analyzing mass spectra makes use of autocorrelation in conjunction with cross-correlation to score the similarity of an observed spectrum to an idealized spectrum representing a peptide.
In Astrophysics, auto-correlation is used to study and characterize the spatial distribution of galaxies in the Universe and in multi-wavelength observations of Low Mass X-ray Binaries.