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# Optical properties of metal nanoparticles with arbitrary shapes

## 1 Introduction

The fabrication of nanostructures requires a deep understanding of the physical phenomena involved at this length-scale. Low-dimensional quantum structures have shown to have unique optical and electronic properties. In particular, the shape and size of low-dimensional structures are crucial parameters that determine those physical properties. The characterization of these parameters are important issues either in fundamental research or in technological applications, covering from growth and characterization to device processing. Among nanostructures, metallic nanoparticles are also important because some of their main physical properties might be completely different from the corresponding ones in either molecules or bulk solids. For example, they might assume crystal structures that do not correspond to those of the bulk solid. . Also, the catalytic activity of some of them depends strongly on their size and shape.

Typically, the estimation of the shape and size of nanoparticles has been done using techniques like Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and Reflection High-Energy Electron Diffraction (RHEED) . These techniques provide the image of a small piece of the sample, this means that they give information about local properties by characterizing a few nanoparticles at a time. Different shapes of nanoparticles have been reported with the use of these techniques, such as spheres, spheroids, lens-shaped, cone-shaped, pyramids with different facets, truncated pyramids, and different types of polyhedra . A vast amount of information has been obtained through these “structural-characterization techniques”, however, they still have some limitations. One limitation is that in most cases the growth and characterization are made in different ambients, which is a serious problem because the properties of nanoparticles are ambient dependent. In some of these techniques the sample is literally touched during characterization and sometimes this might substantially modify the properties of a nanoparticle. Furthermore, the growth and characterization of nanoparticles are usually made at different times, and this might become an additional uncontrollable variable.

The limitations of these “structural-characterization techniques” make desirable the use of complementary tools that could accomplish the same objectives but in the same ambient, in real time, in a non-destructive way, and providing statistical properties of the whole sample. Among these complementary tools one finds that within this context optical spectroscopies have been extremely useful due to their non-destructive and real-time character together with their in situ potentiality . The above attributes can be found, for example, in Light Absorption Spectroscopy, Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS), Differential Reflectance (DR), etc. . These attributes have allowed to control the growth of superlattices , and with a proper implementation of them, it might be possible to control also the growth of nanoparticles, correcting their shape and size during the growth process. In the future, this fact will be of crucial importance for the development of nanosciences and their technological applications.

A variety of results using optical techniques have been able to relate the spectroscopic features of the nanoparticles spectra with the excitation of surface plasmons and excitons, as well as the significant enhancement in Raman-absorption -excitation peak intensities, with the size and shape of a given system . These features are manifested in optical spectra such as in light absorption, reflection and transmission or in light-extinction and scattering spectra, however, a clear physical interpretation of this spectroscopic information is still waiting. In conclusion, the actual correct determination of the size and shape parameters of a given nanoparticle is still controversial because a more complete experimental determination is needed, together with a corresponding clear physical interpretation.

In the present work, we study the optical properties of metallic nanometer-sized particles with different shapes and sizes. We calculate and discuss spectra for the extinction, absorption and scattering efficiencies. In particular, we show results for gold and silver nanoparticles. Our main goal is twofold, first we show how the main peaks of the optical spectra can be associated to the shape and size of the nanoparticle, as well as its material properties, and second we show the relative importance of absorption and scattering processes as a function of the same geometrical and material parameters. Although our calculation procedure is, at the present time, unable to display the actual fields induced in the particle, we can attach a multipolar character to the different excitations responsible for the charateristic features of the spectra by comparing results for particles with the same shape but with different size. We have also paid a particular attention to the accuracy of our calculations showing explicitly the conditions under which they might become numerically unstable, and comparing them with similar calculations performed by other authors. We believe that this study can be very useful to determine and optimize some of the physical properties of nanoparticles by controlling their shape and size during and after a growth process. Another goal is to motivate future measurements of extinction and absorption spectra of nanoparticles.

## 2 Formalism

In this work, the nanoparticles of interest are typically large enough to accurately apply classical electromagnetic theory to describe their interaction with light . But they are also small enough to observe strong variations in the optical properties depending on the particle size, shape, and local environment. Because of the complexity of the systems being studied, efficient computational methods capable of treating large size materials are essential. In the last few years, several numerical methods have been developed to determine the optical properties of small particles, such as the Discrete Dipole Approximation (DDA), T-matrix and Spectral Representation methods (SR) .

In this work we employed the DDA, which is a computational procedure suitable for studying scattering and absorption of electromagnetic radiation by particles with sizes of the order or less of the wavelength of the incident light. DDA has been applied to a broad range of problems, including interstellar and interplanetary dust grains, ice crystals in the atmosphere, human blood cells, surface features of semiconductors, metal nanoparticles and their aggregates, and more. The DDA was first introduced by Purcell and Pennypacker , and has been subjected to several improvements, in particular those made by Draine, and collaborators . Below, we briefly describe the main characteristics of DDA and its numerical implementation: the DDSCAT code. For a full description of DDA and DDSCAT, the reader may consult Refs. \[21-23\].

The main idea behind DDA is to approximate a scatterer, in our case the nanoparticle, by an large enough array of polarizable point dipoles. Once the location and polarizability of each dipole are specified, the calculation of the scattering and absorption efficiencies by the dipole array can be performed, depending only on the accuracy of the mathematical algorithms and the capabilities of the computational hardware. Although the calculation of the radiated fields in DDA is, in principle, also possible, it is actually beyond the computational capabilities of any of the present systems.

### 2.1 Discrete Dipole Approximation

Let us assume an array of $`N`$ polarizable point dipoles located at $`\{𝐫_i\},i=1,2,\mathrm{},N`$, each one characterized by a polarizability $`\alpha _i`$. The system is excited by a monochromatic incident plane wave $`𝐄_{\mathrm{inc}}(𝐫,t)=𝐄_0e^{i𝐤𝐫i\omega t}`$, where $`𝐫`$ is the position vector, $`t`$ is time, $`\omega `$ is the angular frequency, $`k=\omega /c=2\pi /\lambda `$ is the wavevector, $`c`$ is the speed of light, and $`\lambda `$ is the wavelength of the incident light. Each dipole of the system is subjected to an electric field that can be split in two contributions: (i) the incident radiation field, plus (ii) the field radiated by all the other induced dipoles. The sum of both fields is the so called local field at each dipole and is given by

$$𝐄_{i,\mathrm{loc}}=𝐄_{i,\mathrm{inc}}+𝐄_{i,\mathrm{dip}}=𝐄_0e^{i𝐤𝐫_𝐢}\underset{ij}{}𝐀_{ij}𝐏_j,$$
(1)
where $`𝐏_i`$ is the dipole moment of the $`i`$th-element, and $`𝐀_{ij}`$ with $`ij`$ is an interaction matrix with $`3\times 3`$ matrices as elements, such that

$`𝐀_{ij}𝐏_j`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^{ikr_{ij}}}{r_{ij}^3}}\{k^2𝐫_{ij}\times (𝐫_{ij}\times 𝐏_j)`$ (2)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(1ikr_{ij})}{r_{ij}^2}}[r_{ij}^2𝐏_j3𝐫_{ij}(𝐫_{ij}𝐏_j)]\}.`$ (3)
Here $`r_{ij}=|𝐫_i𝐫_j|`$, and $`𝐫_{ij}=𝐫_i𝐫_j`$, and we are using cgs units. Once we solve the $`3N`$-coupled complex linear equations given by relation

$$𝐏_i=\alpha _i𝐄_{i,\mathrm{loc}},$$
(4)
and determined each dipole moment $`𝐏_i`$, we can then find the extinction and absorption cross sections for a target, $`C_{\mathrm{ext}}`$ and $`C_{\mathrm{abs}}`$, in terms of the dipole moments as

$`C_{\mathrm{ext}}={\displaystyle \frac{4\pi k}{|𝐄_0|^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}}\mathrm{Im}(𝐄_{i,\mathrm{inc}}^{}𝐏_i)`$ (5)
$`C_{\mathrm{abs}}={\displaystyle \frac{4\pi k}{|𝐄_0|^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}}\{\mathrm{Im}[𝐏_i(𝜶_i^1)^{}𝐏_i^{}]{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}k^3|𝐏_i|^2\},`$ (6)
where $``$ means complex conjugate. The scattering cross section can be obtained using the following relation,

$$C_{\mathrm{ext}}=C_{\mathrm{sca}}+C_{\mathrm{abs}}.$$
(7)
There is some arbitrariness in the construction of the array of dipole points that represent a solid target of a given geometry. For example, the geometry of the grid where the dipoles have to be located is not uniquely determined and a cubic grid is usually chosen. Also, it is not obvious how many dipoles are required to adequately approximate the target, or which is the best choice of the dipole polarizabilities. If one chooses the separation between dipoles $`d`$ such that $`d<<\lambda `$, then, one can assign the polarizability for each particle $`i`$ in vacuum, using the Lattice Dispersion Relation (LDR) polarizability, $`\alpha _i^{\mathrm{LDR}}`$ at a third order in $`k`$, given by

$$\alpha _i^{\mathrm{LDR}}=\frac{\alpha _i^{\mathrm{CM}}}{1+\alpha _i^{\mathrm{CM}}\left[b_1+b_2\mathit{ϵ}_i+b_3S\mathit{ϵ}_i\right](k^2/d)},$$
(8)
where $`ϵ_i`$ is the macroscopic dielectric function of the particle, $`\alpha _i^{\mathrm{CM}}`$ is the polarizability given by the well known Clausius-Mossotti relation,

$$\alpha _i=\left(\frac{d}{3}\right)^3\frac{(ϵ_i1)}{(ϵ_i+2)},$$
(9)
and $`S`$, $`b_1`$, $`b_2`$, and $`b_3`$ are coefficients of the expansion.

Now the question is, how many dipoles we need to mimic the continuum macroscopic particle with an array of discrete dipoles? The answer is not straightforward, since we have to consider the convergence of the physical quantities as a function of the dipole number. It has been found that $`N10^4`$ for an arbitrary geometry is a good starting number, as shown in the Appendix. However, we have a matrix of $`(3N)^2`$ complex elements which would require a large amount of computational effort.

In this work we have employed the code adapted by Draine and Flatau to solve the complex linear equations found in DDA. To solve the complex linear equations directly would require tremendous computer capabilities, however, one can use iterative techniques to compute the vector $`𝐏\{𝐏_i\}`$. In this case, each iteration involves the evaluation of matrix-vector products such as $`𝐀𝐏^{(\mathrm{n})}`$, where $`n`$ is the number of the iteration. The algorithm, named DDSCAT, locates the dipoles in a periodic cubic lattice, and it is possible to use fast Fourier transform techniques to evaluate matrix-vector products such as $`𝐀𝐏`$, which allows the whole computation of the final vector $`𝐏`$ for a large number of dipoles . For a detailed description of DDA and DDSCAT code, the reader can look at Refs. \[22-25\].

## 3 Results and Discussion

We define the extinction, absorption and scattering efficiencies or coefficients, $`Q_{\mathrm{ext}}`$, $`Q_{\mathrm{sca}}`$ and $`Q_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ as,

$$Q_{\mathrm{ext}}=\frac{C_{\mathrm{ext}}}{A},Q_{\mathrm{abs}}=\frac{C_{\mathrm{abs}}}{A},Q_{\mathrm{sca}}=\frac{C_{\mathrm{sca}}}{A}.$$
(10)
where $`A=\pi a_{\mathrm{eff}}^2`$, and $`a_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ is defined through the concept of an effective volume equal to $`4\pi a_{\mathrm{eff}}^3/3.`$ In Figs. 1 to 8 we show $`Q_{\mathrm{ext}}`$, $`Q_{\mathrm{sca}}`$ and $`Q_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ in dotted-, dashed- and solid-lines, respectively, as a function of the wavelength of the incident light, $`\lambda `$, for nanometric-size particles. All the calculations were done for nanoparticles with $`a_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ $`=`$50 nm, and dielectric functions as measured on bulk silver and gold by Johnson and Christy . The nanoparticles were represented or mimic by around 65,000 point-dipoles in order to have a good convergence on their optical properties, as we will discuss below. This number of dipoles is quite large in comparison with the numbers used in previous studies on isolated and supported small metallic nanoparticles  where, incidentally, only the extinction efficiency was reported. Our use of a large number of dipoles is in agreement with the results found in a a previous work where we found that even for small metallic nanoparticles with radii of about a few nanometers, one needed more than 12,000 dipoles to achieve convergence on their optical properties . In particular, we found that the extinction efficiency converges very rapidly as a function of the number of dipoles. However, this is not the case for the absorption or scattering efficiencies where a very large number of dipoles were necessary to achieve such a convergence. As we show in this paper, to elucidate the optical properties of large nanoparticles it is indispensable to do an in-depth study of the scattering and absorption efficiencies, and not only of the extinction one.

In Fig. 1, we show the optical efficiencies for a sphere of radius of 50 nm. In the spectra we can observe that at about 320 nm all the efficiencies have a local minimum that corresponds to the wavelength at which the dielectric function of silver, both real and imaginary parts, almost vanish. Therefore, this feature of the spectra is inherent to the material properties and, as we observe below, it is independent of the particle geometry. Below 320 nm, the absorption of light is mainly due to the intra-band electronic transitions of silver, therefore, this feature of the spectra should be also quite independent of the shape and size of the particles, as it is actually corroborated in all the graphs shown below corresponding to a silver particle. At about 350 nm, the spectrum of $`Q_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ shows a peak that is related to the excitation of the surface plasmon of the sphere, therefore this feature is inherent to the geometry of the particle, although the position depends on its material properties. At larger wavelengths the spectrum of $`Q_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ shows specific features from 380 nm to about 500 nm that corresponds to plasmon excitations due to higher multipolar charge distributions . If we look only at the $`Q_{\mathrm{ext}}`$ it is not possible to observe such features since scattering effects hide them. The $`Q_{\mathrm{sca}}`$ spectrum shows a broad structure from 320 nm to 750 nm, with a maximum at about 400 nm, which is three times more intense than the maximum of $`Q_{\mathrm{abs}}`$. The characteristics of the $`Q_{\mathrm{sca}}`$ spectrum are mainly due to the size of the particle. In a previous work  we found that this maximum is less pronounced as the radius of the sphere increases. Also, the $`Q_{\mathrm{sca}}`$ spectra of nanospheres decay slowly as the radius increases; this only means that as the sphere becomes larger it scatters light at longer wavelengths, as expected.

In Fig. 2, we show the optical efficiencies for a nanocube with sides of 83 nm. For wavelengths between 320 nm and 450 nm the main contributions to the $`Q_{\mathrm{ext}}`$ spectrum comes from light absorption and scattering, while for 400 nm $`<\lambda <`$ 700 nm, it comes mainly from light scattering effects. The $`Q_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ spectrum shows a rich structure for $`\lambda `$ between 320 nm and 420 nm, where several peaks are observed. These peaks are associated to the resonances inherent to the cubic geometry . The peak at $`\lambda =410`$ nm corresponds to the dipolar resonance, while the peaks at smaller wavelengths are due to high-multipolar excitations. From 420 nm to about 700 nm, $`Q_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ shows a tail that corresponds also to high-multipolar excitations, however, these excitations are due to size effects. Therefore, this tail is observed in all figures since all the nanoparticles have the same volume. We also performed calculations for silver cubes with sides of 9 nm, where we found that for $`\lambda <`$ 410 nm the $`Q_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ spectrum has more or less the same structure and intensity than the one shown here, but for larger wavelengths it does not have a tail. Above the resonances, at about $`\lambda =`$450 nm, the $`Q_{\mathrm{sca}}`$ spectrum shows a maximum. We can observe that this maximum is at a larger wavelength than the one corresponding to a sphere. This shift of the scattering peak to larger wavelengths is due to the increase in the size of the nanoparticle. The latter observation was also described in a previous work , where the $`Q_{\mathrm{ext}}`$ and $`Q_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ spectra for nanocubes of $`a_{\mathrm{eff}}=`$50 nm and $`a_{\mathrm{eff}}=`$ 150 nm, were compared. In Fig. 8, we will display the optical efficiencies of a gold cube of the same size to discuss the effects due to material properties.

In Fig. 3 we show the optical efficiencies of a silver prolate spheroidal nanoparticle where the incident electromagnetic field is taken parallel to its minor axis. The spheroid has a major to minor axis ratio of 3 to 1. From 320 nm to about 450 nm one can see that the contributions to the $`Q_{\mathrm{ext}}`$ spectrum from absorption and scattering processes are more or less of the same order of magnitude. Notice that the peak at shorter wavelengths ($`350`$ nm) is almost twice as big as the peak at longer wavelengths ($`430`$ nm). The $`Q_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ spectrum is characterized by two peaks, one at $`350`$ nm, and the other at $`430`$ nm, and a tail from 500 nm to 750 nm. The first peak corresponds to the main resonance of an ellipsoid due to a dipolar charge distribution and its position depends on the specific geometry of the particle. On the other hand, the peak and the tail at longer wavelengths correspond to excitations of higher multipolar charge distributions. We recall that although the DDA cannot assign a specific multipolar order to those excitations , one can assert that in this particular geometry, the high multipolar excitations are due to size effects because they are not observed in small spheroidal nanoparticles. Furthermore, it is necessary to do an in-depth study of both absorption and scattering effects to clearly elucidate the problem. For example, it is known that scattering effects of smaller particles have a maximum at smaller wavelengths, therefore it is possible to hide the multipolar effects if they appear at the same wavelength as scattering effects do. In such case, a detail study of the absorption and extinction efficiencies is necessary. We have also calculated the optical efficiencies for smaller ellipsoidal nanoparticles with a major semiaxis of 12 nm. In this case, the main contribution to $`Q_{\mathrm{ext}}`$ comes from light absorption processes due to the excitation of one surface plasmon (dipolar excitation) whose location depends on the particular geometry of each nanoparticle and on its material properties. From 475 nm to 750 nm the main contribution to $`Q_{\mathrm{ext}}`$ come from light-scattering effects, although, we also observed a tail in $`Q_{\mathrm{abs}}`$. Although this tail shows also a few peaks, they are washed out as the number of dipoles in the calculation is increased dramatically , so they should come from lack of convergence in the calculations. It is interesting to note that this lack of convergence is particularly observed in metal particles and it could be due to the fact that at long wavelengths the dielectric function of silver, and in general of metals, is negative and large .

In Fig. 4 we show the optical efficiencies for the same silver spheroidal nanoparticle but now with the incident electromagnetic field perpendicular to its minor axis. Like for the previous orientation, the spectrum of $`Q_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ shows also two peaks and a tail, however the peak at 350 nm is less intense than the peak at about 430 nm. In this case, the dipolar excitation or main surface plasmon is observed at $`\lambda =430`$ nm, while high-multipolar excitations are observed at $`\lambda =350`$ nm. These changes in the excitation energy of the multipolar modes depending on the orientation of the polarization of the incident light have been already calculated for oblate and prolate spheroids using the exact solution in the quasi-static limit, where multipolar excitations are induced by the presence of a substrate . Here the $`Q_{\mathrm{ext}}`$ spectrum has again contributions from both absorption and scattering processes. From 475 nm to 750 nm the main contribution to $`Q_{\mathrm{ext}}`$ comes from light scattering effects, as it does in Fig. 3. However, for this orientation of the ellipsoid $`Q_{\mathrm{ext}}`$ is about twice as intense as the one corresponding to an incident electromagnetic field parallel to the major axis. Besides that, it is possible to assign a particular geometry to each spectra, so we can also obtain information about its orientation. However, since the intensity and sharpness of the spectra is dominated by the material properties, it is possible that this kind of information could be hidden if the dielectric response of the particle is different .

In Fig. 5 we show the optical efficiencies for a silver cylinder when the incident electromagnetic field is parallel to its symmetry axis. The cylinder has a radius of 43.7 nm and its axis is two times larger than its radius. From 320 nm to 470 nm the absorption effects are as important as the light scattering effects. The $`Q_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ spectrum shows three main peaks which are due to the geometrical properties of the nanoparticle, as we have discussed before. The $`Q_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ spectrum also shows a tail at larger wavelengths due to high-multipolar excitations coming from size effects. In $`Q_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ the peak at $`\lambda `$430 nm corresponds to a dipolar excitations, while the other two peaks at lower wavelengths are due to multipolar excitations inherent to the geometry of the particle. These multipolar excitations are enhanced due to size effects, since for smaller nanocylinders we observe that the dipolar excitation is fourteen times more intense than other multipolar excitations. At longer wavelengths the spectrum is dominated by scattering effects, as shown in the figure. For this geometry, we observe that the scattering processes are very efficient as compared with the corresponding ones in other particles, and the main peak in the extinction spectrum is located at longer wavelengths. This geometry is similar to the spheroidal nanoparticles, therefore, we observed that both spectra are also similar, except that the absorption of the cylinder shows an additional resonance.

In Fig. 6 we show the optical efficiencies of a silver tetrahedral nanoparticle when the incident electric field is parallel to its basis, and it is pointing towards one of its vertex. The tetrahedron has sides of 164 nm. The spectra for $`\lambda >320`$ nm are different from those discussed above, since a more complex resonance structure is found. In this case, light absorption and scattering occur over a wide range of wavelengths. For $`\lambda <500`$ nm the absorption effects are a little more intense than scattering effects, and for $`\lambda >500`$ nm the contrary occurs. For this particular geometry, we observe that the spectra have a very rich structure coming from the excitation of surface plasmons as well as from light scattering. The $`Q_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ spectrum has a dipolar resonance at about 500 nm which is enhanced by multipolar excitations from both geometry and size effects. At smaller wavelengths, the $`Q_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ spectrum is dominated by high-multipolar excitations due to the geometry of the particle. These high-multipolar excitations have been experimentally observed and theoretically identified for Ag prisms . The $`Q_{\mathrm{sca}}`$ spectrum shows a maximum at about $`\lambda =590`$ nm. Notice that from 600 nm to 750 nm the $`Q_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ spectrum shows several peaks coming from lack of convergence in the calculations, thus they have no physical meaning as it was pointed out before.

In Fig. 7 we show the optical efficiencies for a silver nanoparticle that is made of small spheres which are so arranged as to resemble a kind of pyramid with a square base. The sides of the base of the pyramid is 146 nm while its high is 73 nm. We have taken the incident electric field parallel to its base. Like for the tetrahedron, the spectra are completely different from those corresponding to the other silver nanoparticles discussed above. When $`\lambda >320`$ nm light absorption and scattering occur over a wide range of wavelengths, being the absorption effects the ones that dominate the structure of the spectrum. The spectra of the pyramid also have a very rich structure coming from the excitation of surface plasmons as well as from the light scattering corresponding to this particular geometry. However, the structure of the $`Q_{\mathrm{ext}}`$ is rather smooth as compared to the one of the tetrahedral nanoparticle. This could be associated to the fact that the pyramid is constructed by using small spheres, and each sphere has a single surface plasmon and a well defined scattering peak. However, in this case it was not possible to distinguish between dipolar and high-multipolar excitations. Again, we observe four sharp peaks at large wavelengths which come from lack of convergence in the calculations at those specific wavelengths, nevertheless, the spectra should be valid at all the other wavelengths. The enhancement of these peaks could come from the fact that the small spheres are touching, however a more careful study has to be done.

In Fig. 8 we show the optical efficiencies for a nanocube with the same volume as the one in Fig. 2, but made out of gold. For the gold cube the $`Q_{\mathrm{ext}}`$ spectrum shows a broad structure from 250 nm to about 500 nm, due mainly to absorption effects although light scattering is also observed. Contrary to the rich structure found for the silver cube, in this case we observe very smooth curves. This behavior comes from the fact that the relaxation time of electrons in gold is about ten times smaller than the relaxation time for silver, this fact gives rise to a completely different dielectric response. The several peaks found for the silver nanoparticles are now replaced by a wide structure that is due to surface plasmons as well as intra-band transitions. Then, we can conclude that both effects are of the same order of magnitude since the fine structure inherent to a cube has been washed out. The latter gives rise to a wide peak in $`Q_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ at about 550 nm and a peak in $`Q_{\mathrm{sca}}`$ at about 580 nm. Notice that at $`\lambda =580`$ nm the $`Q_{\mathrm{sca}}`$ spectra of the silver (Fig. 2) and gold (Fig. 8) nanocubes are of the same magnitude. However for the silver cube the $`Q_{\mathrm{sca}}`$ has its maximum at lower wavelengths and it is almost twice as large as the one corresponding to the gold cube, where its maximum seems to be inhibited and this might be due to intra-band transitions.

Recently silver and gold suspended nanoparticles have been produced by wet chemistry techniques  and by laser ablation in aqueous solution . In the first case, the nanoparticles have been fully characterized by measurements of the extinction efficiency . In the second case, the authors reported the production of gold nanoparticles with a diameter between 1 nm to 50 nm, as well as silver nanoparticles with diameters between 1 nm to 40 nm. The reported absorption spectrum of silver nanoparticles show a minimum at about 320 nm, and a wide peak with a maximum around 400 nm, and at about 600 nm the spectrum starts to decay very fast. On the other hand, for gold nanoparticles the absorption spectrum shows a wider structure from 300 nm to 800 nm, showing a shoulder at about 520 nm. The authors argued that such nanoparticles have spherical geometry, however, we believe that it is difficult assert because the absorption peak is so wide in both cases that any particular optical signature due to geometry might be hidden by the distribution of sizes and shapes of the nanoparticles, and not only due to the effects in the change of the electron mean free path or in the absorption energies of intra-band transitions, as it was argued . Unfortunately a direct comparison between our calculation and their measurements is not possible since their samples might have a large distribution of sizes, as well as a large variety of shapes.

## 4 Conclusions

We use the discrete dipole approximation to study the main optical features of the extinction, absorption and scattering efficiencies of nanoparticles of different sizes and shapes, made out of silver and gold. Here we have considered different geometries: spheres, ellipsoids, cubes, tetrahedra, cylinders and pyramids. In most cases, we have clearly identified the main optical signature associated to each geometry. We find, as it might have been expected, that the spectra are more complex as the particle has less symmetry and /or has more vertices. We have identified in the spectra the main surface plasmon resonance associated to a dipolar excitation, as well as other resonances due to high-multipolar excitations. The physical origin of these high-multipolar excitations might have two different sources, one due to the shape and the other due to the size of the particle. In the case of silver particles, specific features in the optical spectra can be associated to either geometry, size or material properties, making optical spectroscopies a very helpful tool for the characterization of nanoparticles during and after growth. We also show that it is not enough to analyze the extinction efficiency to elucidate the size and shape of a nanoparticle, but that is absolutely necessary to do also an in-depth study of the absorption and scattering efficiencies.

A direct comparison of our results with most of the available experimental measurements of the optical properties of suspended nanoparticles would require an averaging procedure over a wide distribution of sizes and shapes. But this averaging procedure might smooth out the main relevant features of the spectra associated to the size and shape of the nanoparticles. On the other hand, it would be very desirable to obtain optical spectra over samples with narrower distributions of sizes and shapes.

We appreciate valuable discussions with Prof. Yves Borensztein and Guillermo Ortiz. This work has been partly supported by DGAPA-UNAM grant No. IN104201 and by CONACyT grants 36651-E and G32723-E.

## Appendix A Surface effects

One criteria to choose the number of dipoles or the separation distance between them is to avoid spurious surface effects. We call spurious surface effects to those effects coming from the fact that for a given cubic lattice bounded by a specific particle shape, it is possible to have a number of dipoles at the surface which can be larger or comparable to the number of dipole within the particle.

Let us assume that we have a sphere of volume $`V`$ which can be discretized in N spherical entities with radius $`d/2`$, where $`d`$ is the separation between dipoles. We have that $`VNv=4\pi a_{\mathrm{eff}}^3/3`$, where $`v`$ is the volume ocuppied by each dipole $`v=4\pi (d/2)^3/3`$, and $`a_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ is the effective radius of the particle. Now, we want to know how many dipoles belong to the surface. Suppose we have $`N_s`$ dipoles at the surface which occupies a volume $`N_sv`$,

$$N_sv=\frac{4\pi }{3}a_{\mathrm{eff}}^3\frac{4\pi }{3}(a_{\mathrm{eff}}d/2)^3,$$
(11)
where we find that

$$N_s=N[1\frac{1}{N}(N^{1/3}1)^3].$$
(12)
Using this formula, we have that for a total of $`N=100`$ dipoles, about $`52`$ of them belong to the surface, for $`N=1000`$, about $`271`$ dipoles belong to the surface, and so on, as shown in Table 1.

FIGURE CAPTIONS

FIGURE 1: Optical coefficients for a silver nanosphere

FIGURE 2: Optical coefficients for a silver nanocube

FIGURE 3: Optical coefficients for a silver nanospheroid for an electric field polarized along the minor axis

FIGURE 4: Optical coefficients for a silver nanospheroid for an electric field polarized along the major axis

FIGURE 5: Optical coefficients for a silver nanocylinder for an incident electromagnetic field along the symmetry axis

FIGURE 6: Optical coefficients for a silver tetrahedra for an incident electromagnetic field perpendicular to the basis

FIGURE 7: Optical coefficients for a silver piramide for an incident electromagnetic field perpendicular to the basis

FIGURE 8: Optical coefficients for a gold nanocube


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

A primary task of nervous systems is the collection at its periphery of information from the environment and the distribution of that stimulus input to central nervous system functions. This is often accomplished through the production and transmission of action potentials or spike trains .

The book  and subsequent papers by its authors and their collaborators  carefully lay out a program for interpreting the analog stimulus of a nervous system using ideas from probability theory and information theory, as well as a representation of the input/output or stimulus/response relation in terms of Volterra kernel functions. In  the authors note that when presenting a stimulus to a neuron, it is common “that the response spike train is not identical on each trial.” Also they observe that “Since there is no unique response, the most we can say is that there is some probability of observing each of the different possible responses.” This viewpoint then underlies the wide use of probabilistic ideas in describing how one can “read the neural code” through interpreting the response spike trains to infer the stimulus.

In this paper we take a different point of view and recognize that the neuron into which one sends a stimulus is itself a dynamical system with a time dependent state which will typically be different upon receipt of different realizations of identical stimulus inputs. Viewing the transformation of the stimulus waveform into the observed response sequence, as a result of deterministic dynamical action of the neuron one can attribute the variation in the response to identical stimuli to differing neuron states when the stimulus arrives. This allows us to view the entire transduction process of analog input (stimulus) to spike train output (response) as a deterministic process which can be addressed by methods developed in nonlinear dynamics for dealing with input/output systems .

Previous research on information encoding in spike trains has concentrated on nonlinear filters that convert analog input signals into spike trains. It has been shown that these models can be used to reconstruct the dynamical phase space of chaotic inputs to the filters using the spike timing information . Using simple dynamical neuron models, Castro and Sauer  have shown that aspects of a dynamical system can be reconstructed using interspike intervals (ISIs) properties. Experimental work has demonstrated the ability to discriminate between chaotic and stochastic inputs to a neuron , as well as showing that decoding sensory information from a spike train through linear filtering Volterra series techniques can allow for large amounts of information to be carried by the precise timing of the spikes .

We discuss here the formulation of input/output systems from a dynamical system point of view, primarily summarizing earlier work , but with a focus on recognizing that we may treat the response signals as trains of identical spikes. Since the modulation of the spike train must be carrying the information in the analog input presented to the neuron, if the spike pulse shapes are identical, all information must be encoded in the ISIs. We shall show that this is, indeed, the case.

What is the role of information theory in a deterministic chain of actions from stimulus to spiking response? The ideas of information theory, though often couched in terms of random variables, applies directly to distributed variation in dynamical variables such as the output from nonlinear systems. The use of concepts such as entropy and mutual information, at the basis of information theoretic descriptions of systems, applies easily and directly to deterministic systems. The understanding of this connection dates from the 1970’s and 1980’s where the work of Fraser  makes this explicit, and the connection due to Pesin  between positive Lyapunov exponents of a deterministic system and the Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy quantifies the correspondence.

In the body of this paper, we first summarize the methods used to determine a connection between analog input signals and spiking output, then we apply these methods to a Hodgkin-Huxley conductance based model of the R15 neuron of Aplysia . Future papers will investigate the use of these methods on biological signals from the H1 visual neuron of a fly and a stretch receptor in the tail of a crayfish

## 2 Input Estimation from State Space Reconstruction

The general problem we address is the response to stimuli of a neural circuit with N dynamical variables

$$𝐱(t)=[x_1(t),x_2(t),\mathrm{},x_N(t)].$$

When there is no time varying input, $`𝐱(t)`$ satisfies the ordinary differential equations

$$\frac{dx_a(t)}{dt}=F_a(𝐱(t)),;a=1,2,\mathrm{},N$$
(1)
The $`F_a(𝐱)`$ are a set of nonlinear functions which determine the dynamical time course of the neural circuit. The $`F_a(𝐱)`$ could well represent a conductance based neural model of the Hodgkin-Huxley variety as in our example below.

When there is a time dependent external stimulus $`s(t)`$, these equations become

$$\frac{dx_a(t)}{dt}=F_a(𝐱(t),s(t)),$$
(2)
and the time course of $`𝐱(t)`$ in this driven or non-autonomous setting can become rather more complicated than the case where $`s(t)=\text{constant}`$.

If we knew the dynamical origin of the signal $`s(t)`$, then in the combined space of the stimuli and the neural state space $`𝐱(t)`$, we would again have an autonomous system, and many familiar  methods for analyzing signals from nonlinear systems would apply. As we proceed to our “input signal from spike outputs” connection we imagine that the stimulus system is determined by some other set of state variables $`𝐳(t)`$ and that

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d𝐳(t)}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`𝐆(𝐳(t))`$
$`s(t)`$ $`=`$ $`h(𝐳(t)),`$ (3)
where $`𝐆(𝐳)`$ are the nonlinear functions determining the time course of the state $`𝐳(t)`$ and $`h(𝐳(t))`$ is the nonlinear function determining the input to the neuron $`s(t)`$.

With observations of just one component of the state vector $`𝐱(t)`$, the full dynamical structure of a system described by Equation 2 can be reconstructed in a proxy state space . Once the dynamics of the system is reconstructed, the mapping from state variable to input can be made in the reconstructed space. Assume the measured state variable, $`r(t)=g(\text{x}(t))`$, is sampled at times $`t_j`$, where $`j`$ is an integer index. According to the embedding theorem , the dynamics of the system can be reconstructed in an embedding space using time delayed vectors of the form

$`𝐲(j)`$ $`=`$ $`[r(t_j),r(t_j+T\tau _s),\mathrm{},r(t_j+(d_E1)T\tau _s)]`$ (4)
$`=`$ $`[r(j),r(j+T),\mathrm{},r(j+(d_E1)T)]`$
where $`d_E`$ is the dimension of the embedding, $`t_j=t_0+j\tau _s`$, $`\tau _s`$ is the sampling time, $`t_0`$ is an initial time, and $`T`$ is an integer time delay. If the dimension $`d_E`$ is large enough these vectors can reconstruct the dynamical structure of the full system given in Equation 2. Each vector $`𝐲(j)`$ in the reconstructed phase space depends on the state of the input signal. Therefore a mapping should exist that associates locations in the reconstructed phase space $`𝐲(j)`$ to values of the input signal $`s(t_j)s(j):s(j)=H(𝐲(j))`$. The map $`H(𝐲)`$ is the output-to-input relation we seek.

Without simultaneous measurements of the observable $`r(t)`$ and the input signal $`s(t)`$, this mapping could not be found without knowing the differential equations that make up Equation 2. But in a situation where a controlled stimulus is presented to a neuron while measuring the output, both $`r(t)`$ and $`s(t)`$ are available simultaneously. Such a data set with simultaneous measurements of spike time and input is split into two parts: the first part, called the training set, will be used to find the mapping $`H(𝐲(j))`$ between $`𝐲(j)`$ and $`s(j)`$. The second part, called the test set, will be used to test the accuracy of that mapping. State variable data from the training set $`r(j)`$ is used to construct time delayed vectors as given by

$$𝐲(j)=[r(j),r(j+T),\mathrm{},r(j+(d_E1)T)].$$
(5)
Each of these vectors is paired with the value of the stimulus at the midpoint time of the delay vector

$$s(j)=s\left(t_{j+T(d_E1)/2}\right)$$
(6)
We use state space values that occur before and after the input to improve the quality of the representation. The state variables and input values in the remainder of the data are organized in a similar way and used to test the mapping.

The phase space dynamics near a test data vector are reconstructed using vectors in the training set that are close to the test vector, where we use Euclidian distance between vectors. These vectors lie close in the reconstructed phase space, so they will define the dynamics of the system in that region and will define a local map from that region to a input signal value. In other words, we seek a form for $`H(𝐲(j))`$ which is local in reconstructed phase space to $`𝐲(j)`$. The global map over all of phase space is a collection of local maps.

The local map is made using the $`N_B`$ nearest neighbors $`𝐲^m(j),m=0\mathrm{}N_B`$ of $`𝐲^0(j)=𝐲(j)`$. These nearest neighbor vectors and their corresponding input values $`s^m(j)`$ are used to find a local polynomial mapping between inputs $`s^m(j)`$ and vector versions of the outputs $`r^m(j)`$, namely $`𝐲^m(j)`$ of the form

$$s^m(j)=H(𝐲^m(j))=M_0(j)+\text{M}_1(j)𝐲^m(j)+\text{M}_2(j)𝐲^m(j)𝐲^m(j)+\mathrm{},$$
(7)
which assume that the function $`H(𝐲)`$ is locally smooth in phase space.

The scalar $`M_0(j)`$, the $`d_E`$-dimensional vector $`\text{M}_1(j)`$, and the tensor $`\text{M}_2(j)`$ in $`d_E`$-dimensions, etc are determined by minimizing the mean squared error

$$\underset{m=0}{\overset{N_B}{}}|s^m(j)M_0(j)+\text{M}_1(j)𝐲^m(j)+\text{M}_2(j)𝐲^m(j)𝐲^m(j)+\mathrm{}|^2.$$
(8)
We determine $`M_0(j),\text{M}_1(j),\text{M}_2(j),\mathrm{}`$ for all $`j=1,2,\mathrm{}`$, and this provides a local representation of $`H(𝐲)`$ in all parts of phase space sampled by the training set $`𝐲(j),j=1,2,\mathrm{},N_{train}`$.

Once the least squares fit values of $`M_0(j),\text{M}_1(j),\text{M}_2(j),\mathrm{}`$ are determined for our training set, we can use the resulting local map to determine estimates of the input associated with an observed output. This proceeds as follows: select a new output $`r^{new}(l)`$ and form the new output vector $`𝐲^{new}(l)`$ as above. Find the nearest neighbor in the training set to $`𝐲^{new}(l)`$. Suppose it is the vector $`𝐲(q)`$. Now evaluate an estimated input $`s^{est}(l)`$ as

$$s^{est}(l)=M_0(q)+\text{M}_1(q)𝐲^{new}(l)+\text{M}_2(q)𝐲^{new}(l)𝐲^{new}(l)+\mathrm{}.$$
(9)
This procedure is applied for all new outputs to produce the corresponding estimated inputs.

## 3 R15 Neuron Model

To investigate our ability to reconstruct stimuli of analog form presented to a realistic neuron from the spike train output of that neuron, we examined a detailed model of the R15 neuron in Aplysia , and presented this model neuron with nonperiodic input from a low dimensional dynamical system. This model has seven dynamical degrees of freedom. The differential equations for this model are

$`C{\displaystyle \frac{dV_m(t)}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`(g_Iy_2(t)^3y_3(t)+g_T)(V_IV(t))+g_L(V_LV(t))`$ (10)
$`+`$ $`(g_Ky_4(t)^4+g_Ay_5(t)y_6(t)+g_Py_7(t))(V_KV(t))`$
$`+`$ $`I_0+I_{ext}+I_{input}(t),`$
where the $`y_n(t);n=2,3,\mathrm{},7`$ satisfy kinetic equations of the form

$$\frac{dy_n(t)}{dt}=\frac{Y_n(V_m(t))y_n(t)}{\tau _n(V_m(t))},$$
(11)
which is the usual form of Hodgkin-Huxley models. The $`g_X,X=I,T,K,A,P,L`$ are maximal conductances, the $`V_X,X=I,L,K`$ are reversal potentials. $`V_m(t)`$ is the membrane potential, $`C`$ is the membrane capacitance, $`I_0`$ is a fixed DC current, and $`I_{ext}`$ is a DC current we vary to change the state of oscillation of the model. The functions $`Y_n(V)`$ and $`\tau _n(V)`$ and values for the various constants are given in . These are phenomenological forms of membrane voltage dependent gating variables, activation and inactivation of membrane ionic channels, and time constants for these gates. $`I_{input}(t)`$ is a time varying current input to the neural dynamics. Our goal will be to reconstruct $`I_{input}(t)`$ from observations of the spike timing in $`V_m(t)`$.

In Figure 1 we plot the bifurcation diagram of our R15 model. On the vertical axis we show the values of ISIs taken in the time series for $`V_m(t)`$ from the model; on the horizontal axis we plot $`I_{ext}`$. From this bifurcation plot we see that the output of the R15 model has regular windows for $`I_{ext}<.07`$ then chaotic regions interspersed with periodic orbits until $`I_{ext}0.19`$ after which nearly periodic behavior is seen. The last region represents significant depolarization of the neuron in which tonic periodic firing associated with a stable limit cycle in phase space is typical of neural activity. Periodic firing leads to a fixed value for ISIs, which is what we see. Careful inspection of the time series reveals very small fluctuations in the phase space orbit, but the resolution in Figure 1 does not expose this.

Other than the characteristic spikes, there are no significant features in the membrane voltage dynamics. In addition all the spikes are essentially the same, so we expect that all the information about the membrane voltage state is captured in the times between spikes, namely the interspike intervals: ISIs. The distribution of ISIs characterizes the output signal for information theoretic purposes.

We have chosen three values of $`I_{ext}`$ at which to examine the response of this neuron model when presented with an input signal. At $`I_{ext}=0.1613`$ we expect chaotic waveforms expressed as nonperiodic ISIs with a broad distribution. At $`I_{ext}=0.2031`$ we expect nearly periodic spike trains. And at $`I_{ext}=0.15`$ the neuron does not spike, the mebrane voltage remains at an equilibrium value.

For each $`V_m(t)`$ time series we evaluate the normalized distribution of ISIs which we call $`P_{ISI}(\mathrm{\Delta })`$ and from this we compute the entropy associated with the oscillations of the neuron. Entropy is defined as

$$H(\mathrm{\Delta })=\underset{\text{observed}\mathrm{\Delta }}{}P_{ISI}(\mathrm{\Delta })\mathrm{log}\left(P_{ISI}(\mathrm{\Delta })\right);$$
(12)
$`H(\mathrm{\Delta })0`$. The entropy is a quantitative measure  of the information content of the output signal from the neural activity.

In Figure 2 we display a section of the $`V_m(t)`$ time series for $`I_{ext}=0.1613`$. The irregularity in the spiking times is clear from this figure and the distribution $`P_{ISI}(\mathrm{\Delta })`$ shown in Figure 3. The $`P_{ISI}(\mathrm{\Delta })`$ was evaluated from collecting 60,000 spikes from the $`V_m(t)`$ time series and creating a histogram with 15,000 bins. This distribution has an entropy $`H(\mathrm{\Delta })=12`$. In contrast to this we have a section of the $`V_m(t)`$ time series for $`I_{ext}=0.2031`$ in Figure 4. Far more regular firing is observed with a firing frequency much higher than for $`I_{ext}=0.1613`$. This increase in firing frequency as a neuron is depolarized is familiar. With $`I_{ext}=0.2031`$ the distribution $`P_{ISI}(\mathrm{\Delta })`$ is mainly concentrated in one bin with some small flucuations near that bin. Such a regular distribution leads to a very low entropy $`H(\mathrm{\Delta })=0.034`$. If not for the slight variations in ISI, the entropy would be zero. If $`P_{ISI}(\mathrm{\Delta }_0)=1`$ for some ISI value $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$, then $`H(\mathrm{\Delta })=0`$.

### 3.1 Input Signals to Model Neuron

In the last section the dynamics of the neuron model were examined using constant input signals. In studying how neurons encode information in their spike train, we must clarify what it means for a signal to carry information. In the context of information theory , information lies in the unpredictability of a signal. If we do not know what a signal is going to do next, then by observing it we gain new information. Stochastic signals are commonly used as information carrying signals since their unpredictability is easily characterized and readily incorporated into the theoretical structure of information theory. But they are problematic when approaching a problem from a dynamical systems point of view, since they are systems with a high dimension. This means that the reconstruction of a stochastic signal using time delay embedding vectors of the form of Equation 4 would require an extremely large embedding dimension . If we are injecting stochastic signals into the R15 model, the dimension of the whole system would increase and cause practical problems in performing the input reconstruction. Indeed, the degrees of freedom in the stochastic input signal could well make the input/output relationship we seek to expose impossible to see.

An attractive input for testing the reconstruction method will have some unpredictability but have few degrees of freedom. If there are many degrees of freedom, the dimensionality of the vector of outputs $`𝐲(j)`$ above may be prohibitively large. This leads directly to the consideration of low dimensional chaotic systems. Chaos originates from local instabilities which cause two points initially close together in phase space to diverge rapidly as the system evolves in time, thus producing completely different trajectories. This exponential divergence is quantified by the positive Lyapunov exponents and is the source of the unpredictability in chaotic systems . The state of any observed system is known only to some degree of accuracy, limited by measurement and systematic errors. If the state of a chaotic system were known exactly then the future state of that system should be exactly predictable. But if the state of a chaotic system is only known to some finite accuracy, then predictions into the future based on the estimated state will diverge from the actual evolution of the system. Imperfect observations of a chaotic signal will limit the predictability of the signal. Since chaos can occur in low dimensional systems these signals do not raise the same concerns as stochastic signals.

We use a familiar example of a chaotic system, the Lorenz attractor , as the input signal to drive the R15 model. This is a well studied system that exhibits chaotic dynamics and will be used here as input to the R15 neuron model. The Lorenz attractor is defined by the differential equations

$`\kappa {\displaystyle \frac{dx(t)}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`\sigma (y(t)x(t))`$
$`\kappa {\displaystyle \frac{dy(t)}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`x(t)z(t)+rx(t)y(t)`$ (13)
$`\kappa {\displaystyle \frac{dz(t)}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`x(t)y(t)bz(t)`$
For the simulations presented in this paper the parameters were chosen as $`\sigma =16`$, $`r=45.92`$ and $`b=4`$. The parameter $`\kappa `$ is used to change the time scale. An example times series of the $`x(t)`$ component of the Lorenz attractor is shown in Figure 5.

### 3.2 Numerical Results

An input signal $`s(t)=I_{input}(t)`$ is now formed from the $`x(t)`$ component of the Lorenz system. Our goal is to use observations of the stimulus $`I_{input}(t)`$ and of the ISIs of the output signal $`V_m(t)`$ to learn the dynamics of the R15 neuron model in the form of a local map in phase space reconstructed from the observed ISIs. From this map we will estimate the input $`I_{input}(t)`$ from new observations of the output ISIs.

Our analog signal input is the $`x(t)`$ output of the Lorenz system, scaled and offset to a proper range, and then input to the neuron as an external current

$$I_{input}(t)=\text{Amp}(x(t)+x_0),$$
(14)
where Amp is the scaling constant and $`x_0`$ is the offset. The R15 equations are integrated  with this input signal and the spike times $`t_j`$ from the membrane voltage are recorded simultaneously with the value of the input current at that time $`I_{input}(t_j)`$. Reconstruction of the neuron plus input phase space is done by creating time delay vectors from the ISIs

$$𝐲(j)=[isi_j,isi_{j+1},\mathrm{},isi_{j+(d_E1)\tau }]$$
(15)
where

$$isi_j=t_jt_{j1}$$
(16)
For each of these vectors there is a corresponding value of the input current which we chose to be at the midpoint time of the vector

$$s(j)=I_{input}\left(t_{j+(d_E1)\tau /2}\right)$$
(17)
In our work a total of 40000 spikes were collected. The first 30000 were used to create the training set vectors and the next 10000 were used to examine our input estimation methods. For each new output vector constructed from new observed ISIs, $`N_B`$ nearest neighbors from the training set were used to generate a local polynomial map $`𝐲(j)I_{input}^{estimated}(j)`$. $`N_B`$ was chosen to be twice the number of free parameters in the undetermined local coefficients $`M_0,\text{M}_1,\text{M}_2,\mathrm{}`$.

We used the same three values of $`I_{ext}`$ -0.15, 0.1613, and 0.2031 employed above in our simulations. We took $`\text{Amp}=0.001`$, $`\kappa =10^4`$, and $`x_0=43.5`$ for all simulations unless stated otherwise. This very small amplitude of the input current is much more of a challenge for the input reconstruction than large amplitudes. When Amp is large, the neural activity is entrained by the input signal and ‘recovering’ the input merely requires looking at the output and scaling it by a constant. Further, the intrinsic spiking of the neuron which is its important biological feature goes away when Amp is large. The large value of $`\kappa `$ assures that the spikes sample the analog signal $`I_{input}(t)`$ very well.

For $`I_{ext}=0.1613`$ we show a selection of both the input current $`I_{input}`$ and the output membrane voltage $`V_m(t)`$ time series in Figure 6. The injected current substantially changes the pattern of firing seen for the autonomous neuron. Note that the size of the input current is numerically about $`10^3`$ of $`V_m(t)`$, yet the modulation of the ISIs due to this small input is clearly visible in Figure 6.

Using the ISIs of this time series we evaluated $`P_{ISI}(\mathrm{\Delta })`$ as discussed above and from that the entropy $`H(\mathrm{\Delta })`$ associated with the driven neuron. The ISI distribution, $`P_{ISI}(\mathrm{\Delta })`$, shown in Figure 7, has an entropy $`H(\mathrm{\Delta })=8.16`$. The effect of the input current has been to substantially narrow the range of ISIs seen in $`V_m(t)`$. This can be seen by comparison with Figure 3.

Figure 8 shows an example of input signal reconstruction which estimates $`I_{input}`$ using ISI vectors of the described in Equation 15. We used a time delay $`T=1`$, an embedding dimension $`d_E=7`$, and a local linear map for $`H(𝐲(j))`$. The RMS error over the 10,000 reconstructed values of the input was $`\sigma =4.610^4`$. The input signal is only reconstructed at times at which the neuron spikes. So each point is the reconstruction curve in Figure 8 corresponds to a spike in $`V_m(t)`$. Some features of the input are missed because no spikes occur during that time, but otherwise the reconstruction is very accurate. At places where the spike rate is high, interpolation seems to fill the gaps between spikes.

Different values of embedding dimension, time delay, and map order will lead to different reconstruction errors. For example, low embedding dimension may not unfold the dynamics and linear maps may not be able to fit some neighborhoods to the input. For the results shown here, there is little difference in the RMS reconstruction error if the embedding dimension is increased or quadratic maps are used instead of linear maps. This may not be true if lower embedding dimension is used.

The previous example probed the response of a chaotic neural oscillation to a chaotic signal. With $`I_{ext}=0.2031`$ the neuron is in a periodic spiking regime and the input modulates the instantaneous firing rate of the neuron. A sample of the input current and membrane voltage is shown in Figure 9. The distribution of ISIs, $`P_{ISI}(\mathrm{\Delta })`$, shown in Figure 10 and has an entropy $`H(\mathrm{\Delta })=9.5`$. The effect of the input current is to substantially broaden the range of ISIs and increase its entropy as compared to the nearly periodic firing of the autonomous neuron with $`I_{ext}=0.2031`$. The high spiking rate and close relationship between input current amplitude and ISI lead to very accurate reconstructions using low dimensional embeddings. A sample of the reconstruction using $`d_E=2`$ and $`T=1`$ is shown in Figure 11. The RMS reconstruction error of $`\sigma =6.110^4`$ with a maximum error of $`0.007`$.

In a final example we show the reconstruction when the neuron is being driven with an input current below the threshold for spikes. With $`I_{ext}=0.15`$, the autonomous R15 neuron will remain at an equilibrium level and not produce spikes. A Lorenz input injected into the neuron with $`\text{Amp}=0.002`$ and $`x_0=43.5`$ is large enough to cause the neuron to spike. Figure 12 shows a sample of the membrane voltage time series along with the corresponding input current. Since the spiking rate of the neuron is much lower than before, $`\kappa `$ is increased to $`210^5`$. This slows down the dynamics of the Lorenz input relative to the neuron dynamics. Spikes occur during increasing portions of the input current and are absent for low values of input current. Figure 13 shows the distribution of ISIs which has an entropy $`H(\mathrm{\Delta })=5.3`$. The low spiking rate shows up in the distribution in the form large numbers of long ISI. For the reconstruction of the input larger embedding dimensions were needed. An sample of the reconstruction is shown in Figure 14 using $`d_E=7`$ and $`T=1`$. For this fit the RMS reconstruction error $`\sigma =0.0094`$ with a maximum error of $`0.03`$. These errors are noticeably higher than the previous two examples.

The accuracy of the reconstruction method depends on a high spiking rate in the neuron relative to the time scale of the input signal, since only one reconstructed input value is generated for each spike. If the spiking rate of the neuron is low relative to the time scales of the input signal, then the neuron will undersample the input signal and miss many of its features. This limitation can be demonstrated by decreasing the time scale parameter $`\kappa `$, thereby speeding up the dynamics of the input. During the longer ISIs the input current can change by large amounts. Though the reconstruction undersamples the input, but interpolation can fill in some of the gaps. As $`\kappa `$ is increased further the reconstruction will further degrade.

## 4 Discussion

In previous research on the encoding of chaotic attractors in spikes trains, the spike trains were produced by nonlinear transformations of chaotic input signals. Threshold crossing neuron models have been used, which generate the spike times at upward crossings of a threshold. This is equivalent to a Poincare section of the input signal. Also integrate and fire neurons have been studied, which integrate the input signal and fire a spike when it crosses a threshold, after which the integral is reset to zero. Both of these models have no intrinsic complex dynamics; they can not produce entropy autonomously. All of the complex behavior is in the input signal. Even though the attractor of a chaotic input can be reconstructed from the ISIs, these models do not account for the complex behavior of real neurons. The input reconstruction method we have presented here allows for complex intrinsic dynamics of the neuron. We have shown that the local polynomial representations of input/output relations realized in reconstructed phase space can extract the chaotic input from the complex interaction between the input signal and neuron dynamics.

Other experimental works have used linear kernels to map the spike train into the input. They have shown that the precise timing of individual spikes can encode a lot of information about the input . And the precise relative timing between two spikes can carry even more information than their individual timings combined . These results may be pointing toward a state space representation since the time delay embedding vectors used here take into account both the precise spike timing and the recent history of ISIs. From a dynamical systems perspective this is important because the state of the system at the time of the input will affect its response. This is a factor that linear kernels do not take into account.

The advantage of using local representations of input/output relations in reconstructed state space lies primarily in the insight it may provide about the underlying dynamics of the neural transformation process mapping analog environmental signals into spike trains. The goal of the work presented here is not primarily to show we can accurately recover analog input signals from the ISIs of spike output from neurons, though that is important to demonstrate. The main goal is to provide clues on how one can now model the neural circuitry which transforms these analog signals. The main piece of information in the work presented here lies in the size of the reconstructed space $`d_E`$ which tells us something about the required dimension of the neural circuit. Here we see that a low dimension can give excellent results indicating that the complexity of the neural circuit is not fully utilized in the transformation to spikes. Another suggestion of this is in the entropy of the input and output signals. In the case where $`I_{ext}=0.1613`$ the entropy of the analog input is $`11.8`$ while the entropy of the ISI distribution of the output is $`8.16`$. When $`I_{ext}=0.2031`$ the output entropy is $`9.5`$. This suggests, especially in the case of the larger current, that the signal into R15 neuron model acts primarily as a modulation on the ISI distribution. This modulation may be substantial, as in the case when $`I_{ext}=0.1613`$ but reading the modulated signal does not require complex methods.

Our final example took $`I_{ext}=0.15`$ at which value the undriven neuron has $`V_m(t)=\text{constant}`$, so it is below threhold for production of action potentials. In this case the introduction of the stimulus drove the neuron above this threshold and produced a spike train which could be accurately reconstructed. This example is relevant to the behavior of biological neurons which act as sensors for various quantities: visiual stimuli, chemical stimuli (olfaction), etc. In the study of biological sensory systems  the neural circuitry is quiet in the absence of input signals, yet as we now see the methods are equally valid and accurate.

## Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Engineering and Geosciences, under Grants No. DE-FG03-90ER14138 and No. DE-FG03-96ER14592, by a grant from the National Science Foundation, NSF PHY0097134, by a grant from the Army Research Office, DAAD19-01-1-0026, by a grant from the Office of Naval Research, N00014-00-1-0181, and by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, NIH R01 NS40110-01A2. ET acknowledges support from NSF Traineeship DGE 9987614.


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# The noncommutative effects on the dipole moments of fermions in the standard model

## 1 Introduction

The dipole moments of fermions arising from the couplings with the photon and the Z boson provide precise tests of the quantum field theories. In the case of the photon-fermion-fermion ($`\gamma f^+f^{}`$) coupling there exist two types of dipole moments: the electric dipole moment (EDM) and the anomalous magnetic moment (AMM). On the other hand, the weak dipole moments of the fermions arise from the couplings of $`Zf^+f^{}`$ vertex and they are two types similar to previous ones: the weak electric dipole moment (WEDM) and the weak anomalous magnetic moment (WAMM). Within the SM the AMM (WAMM) receives its leading value from one-loop corrections, however the EDM (WEDM) can exits at the higher order in the coupling constant since it receives the non-vanishing value through the CP violating effects coming from the CKM matrix elements. Therefore the SM model contribution to EDM and WEDM is irrelevant in the phenomenological analysis and forces one to search the new physics effects, whereas the AMM and WAMM receive the main contribution within the SM.

There are various studies on the the dipole moments of fermions (EDM, WEDM, AMM, WAMM) in the literature -. The EDM of fermions are interesting from the experimental point of view since there are improvements in the experimental limits of charged lepton EDM. EDM of electron, muon and tau have been measured and the present limits are $`d_e=(1.8\pm 1.2\pm 1.0)\times 10^{27}`$ e-cm , $`d_\mu =(3.7\pm 3.4)\times 10^{19}`$ e-cm  and $`d_\tau =3.1\times 10^{16}`$ e-cm . The measurement of the electron EDM has been made using heavy atoms and the first result is obtained as $`d_e=0.2\pm 3.2\times 10^{26}`$ e-cm . The search for the EDM of tau using the reaction $`e^+e^{}\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$ has been done and the numerical values $`Re[d_\tau ]=(1.15\pm 1.7)\times 10^{17}`$ e-cm, $`Im[d_\tau ]=(0.83\pm 0.86)\times 10^{17}`$ e-cm were obtained in . In , it is emphasized that the dominant contribution to the EDM of lighter leptons comes from the two loop diagrams that involve one power of the Higgs Yukawa couplings. In this work, the CP-violation is assumed to be mediated by neutral Higgs scalars and the EDM of electron is predicted at the order of the magnitude of $`10^{26}`$ e-cm. Furthermore, the works in  are related to analysis of the EDM of leptons in supersymmetric models . In the work , the lepton EDMs are studied by scaling them with corresponding lepton masses and the EDM of electron is predicted as $`10^{27}`$ e-cm.  is devoted to the study of the EDM of leptons $`e,\mu ,\tau `$ in the general two Higgs doublet model (2HDM). Lepton EDM in non-degenerate supersymmetric see saw model have been examined in  and it was shown that in the minimal supersymmetric seesaw model with non-degenerate heavy neutrino masses, the charged lepton EDMs may be enhanced by several orders of the magnitude compared to the heavy neutrino case. In  it has been emphasized that there was another source of EDM inherent in more fundamental models such as supersymmetric models derived from strings and the string models which accommodate the fermion mass hierarchy and mixings generally lead to large EDMs. The EDM of leptons have been studied in the left right supersymmetric models in .  is devoted to the sources of fermion dipole moment contributions from R-parity violating or lepton number violating parameters. In  the muon electric dipole moment induced by Higgs bosons, third-generation quarks and squarks, charginos and gluinos in the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) has been studied. The constraints that the non-observation of electric dipole moments imposed on the radiatively-generated CP-violating Higgs sector and on the mechanism of electroweak baryogenesis in the MSSM, were discussed. The tau EDM has been examined in  and it was concluded that the stringent and independent bounds on the tau EDM competitive with the high energy measurements, can be established in the low energies experiments.

The naturalness bounds on the dipole moments from new physics has been studied on . The EDMs of quarks are not directly measurable, however they can affect the hadron phenomenology, for example through the escaling violation in deep inelastic lepton-hadron scattering or EDM of nucleons. In this work the upper bounds of the quark EDMs have been estimated as

$`|d_u^\gamma |`$ $``$ $`4.0\times 10^{20}ecm,`$
$`|d_d^\gamma |`$ $``$ $`1.5\times 10^{19}ecm,`$
$`|d_s^\gamma |`$ $``$ $`3.0\times 10^{18}ecm,`$
$`|d_c^\gamma |`$ $``$ $`1.1\times 10^{17}ecm,`$
$`|d_b^\gamma |`$ $``$ $`7.0\times 10^{17}ecm,`$
$`|d_t^\gamma |`$ $``$ $`1.5\times 10^{15}ecm.`$ (1)
In , the electric dipole form factors for heavy fermions have been calculated in the 2HDM and it was predicted as

$`|d_\tau ^\gamma |`$ $``$ $`10^{23}ecm,`$
$`|d_t^\gamma |`$ $``$ $`10^{20}ecm,`$
$`|d_b^\gamma |`$ $``$ $`10^{20}ecm,`$
$`|d_c^\gamma |`$ $``$ $`10^{21}ecm.`$ (2)
where the predictions for model I and II versions of the 2HDM are

$`|d_\tau ^\gamma |`$ $``$ $`10^{24}ecm,`$
$`|d_t^\gamma |`$ $``$ $`10^{20}ecm,`$
$`|d_b^\gamma |`$ $``$ $`10^{20}ecm,`$
$`|d_c^\gamma |`$ $``$ $`10^{24}ecm.`$ (3)
The EDM of $`b`$-quark in the general 2HDM and in the 3HDM with $`O(2)`$ symmetry in the Higgs sector has been calculated in  and, even at one loop, the EDM was obtained in the order of $`10^{20}`$e-cm. The work in  is devoted to the EDM of top quark in the general 2HDM, including charged Higgs contribution and the numerical value of EDM was obtained at the order of magnitude of $`10^{20}`$ e-cm.

The WEDM of an elementary particle is the another signature for the CP violation. An improved test of CP invariance in the reaction $`e^+e^{}\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$ on $`Z^0`$ peak is performed using the data sample recorded between $`1991`$ and $`1995`$ with the OPAL detector at LEP. From the non-observation of CP violation, the upper limits for the real and imaginary part of the WEDM of tau lepton is derived $`95\%`$ confidence level as $`Re[d_\tau ^Z]5.6\times 10^{18}`$ e-cm and $`Im[d_\tau ^Z]1.5\times 10^{17}`$ e-cm .

In  the WEDMs of fermions have been analyzed and it was emphasized their property of being five-dimensional operators in the effective Lagrangian. This suggest that WEDM is proportional to $`m_f/\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$ where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the scale of the physics involved. A theoretical work was performed in the framework of the leptoquark models  and the WEDM of tau is predicted as $`|d_\tau ^Z|10^{18}`$ e-cm. In  the WEDM of $`\tau `$ lepton has been estimated in the order of $`10^{18}`$ e-cm by studying the normal and transverse polarization for $`\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$ pairs produced from unpolarized $`e^+e^{}`$ collisions at the Z-peak.

In  the WEDM of heavy fermions have been studied in the framework of the 2HDM and the predicted values read:

$`|d_\tau ^Z|`$ $``$ $`10^{22}ecm,`$
$`|d_t^Z|`$ $``$ $`10^{19}ecm,`$
$`|d_b^Z|`$ $``$ $`10^{20}ecm,`$
$`|d_c^Z|`$ $``$ $`10^{22}ecm.`$ (4)
These numerical results agree with the predictions of $`\tau `$ lepton and $`b`$ quark WEDMs which were obtained in  within the MSSM.

The AMM of a fermion receives its leading value from one-loop corrections in the SM and therefore it is not so much sensitive to the new physics effects beyond. However, with the recent anouncement of world average AMM of muon at BNL ,

$`a_\mu =\mathrm{11\hspace{0.17em}659\hspace{0.17em}203}(8)\times 10^{10},`$ (5)
which has about half of the uncertainty of previous measurements and its SM prediction, a new window is opened for testing the SM and beyond, assuming that the new physics effects can not exceed the deviation. There are various attempts in different models to explain the small deviation of the SM result . Furthermore the deviation of AMM of electron (tau) from its SM contribution is $`\mathrm{\Delta }a_e(\mathrm{\Delta }a_\tau )10^{11}(10^3)`$  and this can be explained by the physics beyond the SM. In  AMM of quarks have been also studied and they have been estimated as:

$`|a_u^\gamma |`$ $``$ $`4\times 10^6\mu _N,`$
$`|a_d^\gamma |`$ $``$ $`1.5\times 10^5\mu _N,`$
$`|a_s^\gamma |`$ $``$ $`3\times 10^4\mu _N,`$
$`|a_c^\gamma |`$ $``$ $`1.1\times 10^3\mu _N,`$
$`|a_b^\gamma |`$ $``$ $`7\times 10^3\mu _N,`$
$`|a_t^\gamma |`$ $``$ $`1.4\times 10^1\mu _N,`$
where $`\mu _N=\frac{e}{2m_{proton}}`$ is the nuclear magneton.

The WAMM of a fermion receives its leading value from one-loop corrections in the SM similar to AMM. Since WAMM is generated through a chirality flip mechanism it is expected to be proportional to the mass of the particle and therefore, the heavy fermions are the candidates for the sizable WAMMs. WAMM of $`\tau `$ lepton has been studied in the literature extensively -. L3 presented the direct limit on $`|Re(a_\tau ^Z)|0.01495`$ $`\%`$ CL . Using the data given in 1997  the WAMM has been predicted as $`|Re(a_\tau ^Z)|0.002795`$ $`\%`$ CL .

This physical quantity has been calculated in the framework of the SM as

$`a_\tau ^Z(SM)=(2.10+0.61i)\times 10^6,`$ (6)
in  and it was studied in  in the framework of the 2HDM. The work in  is devoted to the calculation of the WAMM in the super symmetric (SUSY) model and it was observed that the WAMM increases with the increasing values of the parameter $`tan\beta `$. The WAMM of $`b`$-quark has been calculated as

$`a_b^Z=(3.571.95i)\times 10^4,`$ (7)
in  and in  the numerical values for $`c`$ and $`b`$ quark were presented as

$`a_c^Z`$ $`=`$ $`(2.80+1.09i)\times 10^5,`$
$`a_b^Z`$ $`=`$ $`(2.981.56i)\times 10^4.`$ (8)
Notice that, similar to the WEDM, WAMM is created by five-dimensional operators in the effective Lagrangian and therefore WAMM is proportional to $`m_f^2/\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$ where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the scale of the physics involved .

In the present work, we study the noncommutative (NC) effects on the dipole and magnetic moments of fermions in the framework of the SM. The string theory arguments re-motivate the physics on the noncommutative spaces  and the quantum field theory over noncommutative spaces  has been reached a great interest in recent years .

NC field theory have a non-local structure and the Lorentz symmetry is explicitly violated. These violations have been analyzed in . The renormalizability and the unitarity of NC theories have been studied in the series of works ,  and . The quantum electrodynamics including the noncommutative effects (NCQED) has been examined in  and NCQED has been studied in the extra dimensions in . The noncommutativity in non-abelian case has been formulated in . The work in  is due to the application of this formulation in to the SM. Noncommutative SM (NCSM) building has been studied in  and the determination of triple neutral gauge boson couplings has been done in . In  a unique model for strong and electroweak interactions with their unification has been constructed. Furthermore, the phenomenological analysis of the noncommutative effects on some processes has been studied in several works -. In , the noncommutative CP violating effects have been examined at low energies and it was ephasized that CP violation due to noncommutative geometry was comparable to the one due to the standard model (SM) only for a noncommutative scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }2TeV`$.  is devoted to the SM forbidden processes $`Z\gamma \gamma `$ and $`Zgg`$ with the inclusion of the NC effects. In  the form factors, appearing in the inclusive $`bsg`$ decay, has been calculated in the NCSM, using the approximate phenomenology and the new operators existing in $`bsg`$ decay due to the NC effects has been obtained in . In the recent work , the possible effects of NC geometry on weak CP violation and the untarity triangles have been examined. The work in  is devoted to the $`Zl^+l^{}`$ and $`W\nu _ll^+`$ decays, for $`l=e,\mu ,\tau `$, in the SM, including the noncommutative (NC) effects.

In our analysis we observe that the EDM and WEDM of fermions are sensitive to the NC effects and these physical quantities would be informative in the determination of the upper bounds of the NC parameters.

The paper is organized as follows: In Section 2, we present the explicit expressions for the EDM, AMM, WEDM and WAMM of fermions in the framework of the NC SM. Section 3 is devoted to discussion and our conclusions.

## 2 The noncommutative effects on the dipole moments of the fermions in the SM

The nature of the space-time changes at very short distances of the order of the Planck length and the non commutativity in the space-time is a possible candidate to describe the physics at these distances. In the noncommutative geometry the space-time coordinates are replaced by Hermitian operators $`\widehat{x}_\mu `$ which satisfy the equation

$`[\widehat{x}_\mu ,\widehat{x}_\nu ]=i\theta _{\mu \nu },`$ (9)
where $`\theta _{\mu \nu }`$ is a real and antisymmetric tensor with the dimensions of \[$`mass^2`$\]. Here $`\theta _{\mu \nu }`$ can be treated as a background field relative to which directions in space-time is distinguished and its components are assumed as constants over cosmological scales. Introducing $``$ product of functions, instead of the ordinary one,

$`(fg)(x)=e^{\frac{i}{2}\theta _{\mu \nu }_\mu ^y_\nu ^z}f(y)g(z)|_{y=z=x}.`$ (10)
it is possible to pass to the noncommutative field theory. The commutation of the Hermitian operators $`\widehat{x}_\mu `$ (see eq. (9)) holds with this new product, namely,

$`[\widehat{x}_\mu ,\widehat{x}_\nu ]_{}=i\theta _{\mu \nu }.`$ (11)
Since the noncommutative effects are tiny to observe in the low energy physics one would expect that the physical quantities, which do not exist even at the loop levels more than two in the SM, may be sensitive to the NC effects. The EDM and WEDM can exits at the higher order in the coupling constant in the SM since it receives the non-vanishing value through the CP violating effects coming from the CKM matrix elements. Therefore these quantities may be sensitive to the new physics effects coming from the NC extension of the SM. On the other hand, AMM and WAMM of a fermion receive their leading value from one-loop corrections and therefore it is not so much sensitive to the new physics effects beyond the SM. However, with the stringent bounds obtained in the measurements, the deviations of these quantities from their SM values would be a possible candidate to search the NC effects. In the present work we estimated the EDM, WEDM, AMM and WAMM of massive leptons and quarks in the NC extension of the SM.

EDM (WEDM) and AMM (WAMM) exist in the case of the photon-fermion-fermion (Z boson-fermion-fermion) coupling and the effective Lagrangian of these quantities are

$`_{EDM(WEDM)}=id^{\gamma (Z)}\overline{f}\gamma _5\sigma _{\mu \nu }fF^{\mu \nu },`$ (12)
and

$`_{AMM(WAMM)}=a^{\gamma (Z)}{\displaystyle \frac{e(g)}{4m_f}}\overline{f}\sigma _{\mu \nu }lF^{\mu \nu },`$ (13)
where $`F_{\mu \nu }`$ is the electromagnetic field tensor (weak field tensor), $`d^{\gamma (Z)}`$ is EDM (WEDM) of the fermion $`f`$ and $`a^{\gamma (Z)}`$ is AMM (WAMM) of the fermion $`f`$. Notice that EDM (WEDM) and AMM (WAMM) are proportional to the coefficients $`d`$ and $`a`$ in the interactions

$`d\widehat{n}.\stackrel{}{E},`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{e(g)}{4m_f}}a\widehat{n}.\stackrel{}{B},`$ (14)
respectively, as it can be obtained using the eqs. (12) and (13).

When the non-commutative effects are switched on there exists a new contribution which is proportional to the a function of the noncommutative parameter $`\theta `$. The Lagrangian for the additional vertex to the $`\gamma f^+f^{}`$ and $`Zf^+f^{}`$ interaction reads

$`L_{A(Z)}^f`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\left\{c_{1f}^{A(Z)}\overline{f}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\theta _{\mu \nu }\gamma _\alpha +\theta _{\nu \alpha }\gamma _\mu \right)L^\alpha f+c_{2f}^{A(Z)}\overline{f}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\theta _{\mu \nu }\gamma _\alpha +\theta _{\nu \alpha }\gamma _\mu \right)R^\alpha f\right\}`$ (15)
$`(^\mu V_{A(Z)}^\nu ^\nu V_{A(Z)}^\mu ),`$
with

$`c_{1f}^A`$ $`=`$ $`cos\theta _Wg^{}Y_f^L+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}sgsin\theta _W,`$
$`c_{2f}^A`$ $`=`$ $`cos\theta _Wg^{}Y_f^R,`$
$`c_{1f}^Z`$ $`=`$ $`sin\theta _Wg^{}Y_f^L+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}sgcos\theta _W,`$
$`c_{2f}^Z`$ $`=`$ $`sin\theta _Wg^{}Y_f^R,`$ (16)
where $`V_A^\mu `$ ($`V_Z^\mu `$) denotes the photon (Z boson) field, $`s=1(1)`$ for $`u`$ quarks ($`d`$ quarks and leptons), $`Y_f^L=(\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{6})`$ for ($`f`$=leptons, $`f`$=quarks) and $`Y_f^R=(1,\frac{2}{3},\frac{1}{3})`$ for ($`f`$=leptons, $`f`$=up quarks, $`f`$=down quarks).

At this stage we formulate the dipole moments of fermions using their definitions in eqs. (14) and the NC extensions of SM given in eq. (15). The EDM (WEDM) interaction of fermions are obtained as

$`L_{EDM(WEDM)}^{fNC}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}ec_fm_f|\mathrm{\Theta }_T|\widehat{p}_i.E^i,`$ (17)
where we take $`\overline{f}\theta _{0i}f=|\mathrm{\Theta }_T|\widehat{p}_i`$ and we use $`F^{0i}=E^i`$. In eq. (17) the vector $`(\mathrm{\Theta }_T)_i`$ is responsible for time-space non commutativity and $`\widehat{p}_i`$ is the unit vector in the direction of $`(\mathrm{\Theta }_T)_i`$. Furthermore, $`E_i`$ is the electric (weak electric) field and $`m_f`$ is the fermion mass. Finally the EDM (WEDM) of fermions reads

$`d_f`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}ec_fm_f|\mathrm{\Theta }_T|,`$ (18)
where $`c_f=Q_f`$ for the EDM case and $`c_f=\frac{1}{6sin2\theta _W}(38sin^2\theta _W)`$, $`\frac{1}{6sin2\theta _W}(34sin^2\theta _W)`$, $`\frac{1}{2sin2\theta _W}(14sin^2\theta _W)`$ for $`u`$ quarks, $`d`$ quarks and massive leptons respectively, in the case of WEDM.

The AMM (WAMM) can be obtained using the interaction lagrangian

$`L_{fAMM(WAMM)}^{NC}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}b_fm_f^2|\mathrm{\Theta }_S|\widehat{\mu }.\stackrel{}{B},`$ (19)
where we take $`\overline{f}\theta _{ij}f=\frac{1}{2}ϵ_{ijk}|\mathrm{\Theta }_S|\widehat{\mu }^k`$ and we use $`ϵ_{ijk}F^{ij}=B_k`$. Here $`B_k`$ is the magnetic (weak magnetic) field . The vector $`(\mathrm{\Theta }_S)_k`$ is responsible for space-space non commutativity and $`\widehat{\mu }^k`$ is the unit vector in the direction of $`(\mathrm{\Theta }_S)^k`$. As a result, the AMM (WAMM) of fermions reads

$`a_f={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}b_fm_f^2|\mathrm{\Theta }_S|,`$ (20)
where $`b_f=Q_f`$ for the AMM case and $`b_f=\frac{1}{6sin2\theta _W}(38sin^2\theta _W)`$, $`\frac{1}{6sin2\theta _W}(34sin^2\theta _W)`$, $`\frac{1}{2sin2\theta _W}(14sin^2\theta _W)`$ for $`u`$ quarks, $`d`$ quarks and massive leptons respectively, in the case of WAMM. The eqs (18) and (20) show that the NC effects on the EDM and WEDM (AMM and WAMM) are proportional to the mass (square of mass) of the fermions and the heavy fermion EDM and WEDM (AMM and WAMM) receive the large contribution from the NC effects. Notice that the AMM and WAMM is due to the intrinsic magnetic moment of the fermion and its is spin independent.

## 3 Discussion

This section is devoted to the analysis of the NC effects on the dipole moments of fermions EDM, WEDM, AMM and WAMM, in the framework of the SM. Since the EDM and WEDM can exits at the higher order in the coupling constant in the SM due to the their CP violating nature, they could be sensitive to the new physics effects beyond, NC effects in the present work. The NC effects on the dipole moments deserve to analyze since they can bring comprehensive information in the determination of the bounds of the new NC parameters. On the other hand, AMM and WAMM of a fermion exist in the one-loop order in the SM, and they are not sensitive to the new physics effects beyond, compared to the EDM and WEDM. However, the deviations of the these physical quantities from the SM values can be examined by including the NC effects and the possible constraints can be obtained for the NC parameters.

Our starting point is the experimental result of the electron EDM $`|d_e|3.4\times 10^{26}ecm`$ . Here we assume that the source of the EDM is the NC effect in the SM. Using the experimental upper limit of $`|d_e|`$ and the eq. (18) we obtain an upper bound for the NC parameter $`|\mathrm{\Theta }_T|`$ which is responsible for time-space non commutativity, $`|\mathrm{\Theta }_T|6.67\times 10^{10}(GeV^2)`$. Now we estimate the upper limits of the EDM of the fermions (leptons $`\mu `$, $`\tau `$ and quarks) using the numerical value of $`|\mathrm{\Theta }_T|`$ and the eq (18). Notice that in our predictions we study the absolute values of the dipole moments.

In Fig. 1, we present the noncommutative parameter $`|\mathrm{\Theta }_T|`$ dependence of lepton EDM. Here the solid (dashed) line represents EDM of $`\mu `$ ($`\tau `$) lepton. This figure shows that $`\tau `$ ($`\mu `$) lepton EDM can take the numerical values at the order of $`10^{23}`$ e-cm ($`10^{24}`$ e-cm) in the given interval of the parameter $`|\mathrm{\Theta }_T|`$ . These numerical values satisf the current experimental results, $`d_\mu =(3.7\pm 3.4)\times 10^{19}`$  and $`d_\tau 3.1\times 10^{16}`$ .

Fig. 2 is devoted to the noncommutative parameter $`|\mathrm{\Theta }_T|`$ dependence of quark EDM. Here the dotted (solid, small dashed, dashed, dashed-dotted, dense-dotted) line represents EDM of $`u`$ ($`d`$, $`s`$, $`c`$, $`b`$, $`t`$) quark. $`u`$ ($`d`$, $`s`$, $`c`$, $`b`$, $`t`$) EDM can receive the numerical values at the order of magnitude of $`10^{26}`$ e-cm ($`10^{26},5.0\times 10^{25},10^{23},10^{23},10^{21}`$ e-cm) for $`u`$ ($`d`$, $`s`$, $`c`$, $`b`$, $`t`$) quark. These numerical values are in accordance with the theoretical results presented in eqs. (1, 2, 3) and the t-quark EDM which is calculated in .

Fig. 3, represents the noncommutative parameter $`|\mathrm{\Theta }_T|`$ dependence of lepton WEDM. Here the solid (dashed, small dashed) line represents WEDM of $`e`$ ($`\mu `$, $`\tau `$) lepton. The $`\tau `$ lepton WEDM can take the numerical values at the order of the magnitude of $`10^{25}gcm`$. This results is almost eight order smaller compared to the experimental result $`Re[d_\tau ^Z]=5.6\times 10^{18}`$ e-cm and $`Im[d_\tau ^Z]=1.5\times 10^{17}`$ e-cm . The more accurate measurements in future would make it possible to test NC effects on WEDM more stringently. Furthermore, the theoretical result in the framework of the 2HDM was presented in  as $`d_\tau ^Z10^{22}`$ e-cm and the $`\tau `$ lepton WEDM coming from the NC effects is almost three orders smaller than this numerical value, in the given NC parameter region. The electron and $`\mu `$ lepton WEDM can receive to the numerical values at the order of the magnitude of $`10^{28}`$ g-cm and $`10^{26}`$ g-cm and they can be tested with more sensitive forthcoming experimental measurements.

In Fig. 4 we show the noncommutative parameter $`|\mathrm{\Theta }_T|`$ dependence of quark WEDM. Here the solid (dotted, small dashed, dashed, dashed-dotted, dense-dotted) line represents WEDM of $`u`$ ($`d`$, $`s`$, $`c`$, $`b`$, $`t`$) quark. It is observed that the WEDM can take the numerical value at the order of magnitude of $`5.0\times 10^{27}`$ e-cm ($`10^{26},10^{25},10^{24},10^{23},10^{22}`$ e-cm) for $`u`$ ($`d`$, $`s`$, $`c`$, $`b`$, $`t`$) quark. These upper bounds are smaller compared to the ones obtained in  (see eq. 4).

Now, we analyze the AMM and WAMM of a fermions in the SM including the NC effects. These physical quantities can exist even in the one-loop level in the SM and therefore they are not so much sensitive to the new physics effects beyond. However, with the accurate analysis of the deviations of the these physical quantities from the SM values it would be possible to test the new effects coming from NC geometry.

The recent anouncement of world average AMM of muon at BNL  in eq. (5) and the SM prediction forces that there is still a standard deviation from the experimental result and this could possibly be due to the effects of new physics, at present. Now, we respect the assumption that the new physics effects, NC effects in the present work, on the numerical value of muon AMM should not exceed the present experimental uncertainty, $`10^9`$. Using the eq. (19), we obtain an upper bound for the NC parameter $`|\mathrm{\Theta }_S|`$ which is responsible for space-space non commutativity, $`|\mathrm{\Theta }_S|1.68\times 10^7(GeV^2)`$ and using this upper bound, we estimate the NC effects on the AMM of the fermions (leptons $`e`$, $`\tau `$ and quarks), which is denoted as $`\mathrm{\Delta }a`$.

In Fig. 5, we present the noncommutative parameter $`|\mathrm{\Theta }_S|`$ dependence of lepton $`\mathrm{\Delta }a`$. Here the solid (dashed) line represents $`\mathrm{\Delta }a`$ of $`e`$ ($`\tau `$) lepton. This figure shows that $`\tau `$ ($`e`$) lepton $`\mathrm{\Delta }a`$ can take the numerical values at the order of the magnitude of $`5.0\times 10^7`$ ($`10^{14}`$). These numerical values are far from the results predicted in  $`\mathrm{\Delta }a_e10^{11},(\mathrm{\Delta }a_\tau 10^3)`$.

Fig. 6 is devoted to the noncommutative parameter $`|\mathrm{\Theta }_S|`$ dependence of quark $`\mathrm{\Delta }a`$. Here the solid (dotted, small dashed, dashed, dashed-dotted, dense-dotted) line represents $`\mathrm{\Delta }a`$ of $`u`$ ($`d`$, $`s`$, $`c`$, $`b`$, $`t`$) quark. $`\mathrm{\Delta }a`$ can receive the numerical values in the order of magnitude of $`10^{12}`$ ($`10^{12},10^9,10^7,5\times 10^7,10^3`$) for $`u`$ ($`d`$, $`s`$, $`c`$, $`b`$, $`t`$) quark.

Fig. 7 represents the noncommutative parameter $`|\mathrm{\Theta }_S|`$ dependence of lepton WAMM, $`\mathrm{\Delta }a^Z`$. Here the solid (dashed, small dashed) line represents $`\mathrm{\Delta }a^Z`$ of $`e`$ ($`\mu `$, $`\tau `$) lepton. The NC effects on WAMM of $`e`$ ($`\mu ,\tau `$)lepton is at the order of the magnitude of $`10^{12}`$ ($`5.0\times 10^{10}`$, $`10^8`$).

Finally Fig. 8 is devoted to the noncommutative parameter $`|\mathrm{\Theta }_S|`$ dependence of quark $`\mathrm{\Delta }a^Z`$. Here the solid (dotted, small dashed, dashed, dashed-dotted, dense-dotted) line represents $`\mathrm{\Delta }a^Z`$ of $`u`$ ($`d`$, $`s`$, $`c`$, $`b`$, $`t`$) quark. $`u`$ ($`d`$, $`s`$, $`c`$, $`b`$, $`t`$). $`\mathrm{\Delta }a`$ can receive the numerical values in the order of magnitude of $`10^{12}`$ ($`10^{12},10^9,10^8,10^6,10^4`$) for $`u`$ ($`d`$, $`s`$, $`c`$, $`b`$, $`t`$) quark.

At this stage we would like to summarize our results:

* We take the experimental result of the electron EDM $`|d_e|3.4\times 10^{26}`$ e-cm  and obtain an upper bound for the NC parameter $`|\mathrm{\Theta }_T|`$ which is responsible for time-space non commutativity, $`|\mathrm{\Theta }_T|6.67\times 10^{10}(GeV^2)`$. Using this upper bound, we predict the EDM and WEDM of the fermions existing with the NC effects. We observe that the numerical values of EDM of the leptons $`\mu `$ and $`\tau `$ satisfy the current experimental results. The predicted quark EDMs are in accordance with the theoretical results obtained in the literature. Here the $`\tau `$ lepton WEDM can take the numerical values at the order of magnitude of $`10^{25}`$ g-cm. This result is almost eight order smaller compared to the experimental result  and almost three orders smaller compared to the theoretical result given by . For the heavy quarks $`t`$, $`b`$ and $`c`$ the predicted values in the NC extension of the SM is not so much far from the ones obtained in the framework of the model I and II versions of the 2HDM . With the more accurate measurements in future, it would be possible to test NC effects on WEDM more stringently.
* We restrict the NC parameter $`|\mathrm{\Theta }_S|`$ which is responsible for space-space non commutativity as $`|\mathrm{\Theta }_S|1.68\times 10^7(GeV^2)`$ using the assumption that the NC effects on the numerical value of muon AMM should not exceed the present experimental uncertainty, $`10^9`$. The numerical values $`\mathrm{\Delta }a`$ for $`\tau `$ and $`e`$ lepton we obtain are far from the results predicted in the literature .
* The NC effects on the EDM and WEDM (AMM and WAMM) are proportional to the mass (square of mass) of the fermions and the heavy fermion EDM and WEDM (AMM and WAMM) receive the large contribution in the NCSM. Notice that the AMM and WAMM is due to the intrinsic magnetic moment of the fermion and its is spin independent.

Therefore, the more accurate experimental results of the dipole moments of the fermions would be an effective tool to understand the new physics effects due to the NC geometry.

## 4 Acknowledgement

This work has been supported by the Turkish Academy of Sciences in the framework of the Young Scientist Award Program. (EOI-TUBA-GEBIP/2001-1-8)