Maximum entropy analysis of quasielastic light scattering from colloidal dispersions

The maximum entropy method (MEM) is used to analyze quasielastic light scattering correlation functions. The central problem, in such data analysis, is the recovery of the distribution of exponentials describing the decay of the correlation function (i.e., inverting the Laplace transform). MEM is shown to give a high-quality reconstruction of these distributions. The success of the method is illustrated with results from computer-generated ‘‘noisy’’ data and with experimental data from colloidal dispersions. Both the theoretical properties, and practical advantages of MEM are presented and compared with current data analysis techniques.