Clusters of dislocations in a carrier wave

Clusters of point dislocations (wave vortices) may be present within an otherwise perfect plane scalar wave, a carrier wave in two dimensions, which may be evanescent. The question arises: is it possible to deduce the orientation of the distant undisturbed carrier wave purely from local information about the cluster itself? For groups of two and four dislocations in a carrier wave, this may be done by using no other information than the local phase map or the individual positions of the singularities. The maximum number possible in a cluster with a carrier wave is 4 and the total strength (topological charge) of a cluster is always zero or ± 2. The study includes an examination of degenerate dislocations of strength zero or ± 1