It has been noted that radial distribution functions alone are insufficient to characterize structural information. Distinct point processes may possess identical or practically indistinguishable radial distribution functions, known as the degeneracy problem. In such cases, higher order correlation functions are needed to further describe the structure.
Higher-order distribution functions  with  were less studied, since they are generally less important for the thermodynamics of the system; at the same time, they are not accessible by conventional scattering techniques. They can however be measured by coherent X-ray scattering and are interesting insofar as they can reveal local symmetries in disordered systems.