In a recently published paper led by Erwan Allys and in close collaboration with Stéphane Mallat, we introduce the reduced wavelet scattering transform (RWST), a statistical description with a small number of coefficients that characterizes complex structures arising from nonlinear phenomena, in particular interstellar magnetohydrodynamical (MHD) turbulence, independently of any specific priors. The RWST coefficients encode moments of order up to four, have reduced variances, and quantify the couplings between scales. To show the efficiency and generality of this description, we applied it successfully to three very different kinds of processes. With fewer than 100 coefficients when probing six scales and eight angles on 256 by 256 maps, the RWST allows to perform quantitative comparisons, infer relevant physical properties, and produce realistic synthetic fields. The paper is available
here.