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# Stereotypical Reasoning: Logical Properties

## 1 Introduction

Common sense reasoning in AI requires drawing inferences in a bolder, more adventurous way, than mathematical reasoning. Many different formalisms that implement some form of bold reasoning have been proposed, implemented, used to build artificial systems. Almost no work has been done comparing those formalisms with the way natural intelligence deals with those tasks. Minsky  represents probably one of the only efforts to model reasoning performed by natural intelligence.

During the last decades, philosophers, linguists, sociologists have revolutionized the way we understand the human mind. Putnam  has criticized the classical philosophical assumptions about meaning, and claimed that stereotypes are a necessary component of the meaning of terms. Rosch  has put in evidence the essential function of categorization in achieving intelligence and the intricate ways in which we use it. Categorization is the process in which we relate a specific object or situation to the kind we shall think it a member of. She showed that many of our categories have prototypes, i.e., best examples. Lakoff  resumes and expands much of this line of research.

The purpose of this work is to begin the study of inferencing in a mind that uses categories as described above. A model of the simplest kind of inferencing using stereotypes will be given and the formal properties of the inferencing process will be studied. The formal properties of inferencing that are of interest have been singled out by .

## 2 Stereotypical Reasoning

In this work, stereotypical reasoning is used to denote what is probably the simplest form of natural nonmonotonic reasoning. The present use of the word stereotype is very closely related to Putnam’s stereotypes. He claimed that stereotypes are a necessary part of the meaning of words denoting a natural kind. Here, stereotypes are assumed not only for natural kinds but for any state of information. This could be understood as the assumption that stereotypes are part of the meaning of any sentence, but the philosophical aspects of this assumption are not discussed in this paper. The point of this paper is the study of how stereotypes are used in the inferencing process, and the formal properties of the inferencing resulting from the use of stereotypes. The use of stereotypes has not been discussed by Putnam.

What is called here stereotypical reasoning is very closely related to the use of what Rosch calls prototypical categories. Prototypical alludes, though, to a richer structure than stereotypical and this is the reason the latter term has been preferred. In ordinary parlance stereotypes are considered to be typically wildly inaccurate and an impediment to intelligent thinking. This reputation should not hide the fact that the use of stereotypes is a fundamental tool, probably the central tool, in achieving intelligence. Hence, the importance of its study. Nevertheless, the negative connotation attached to the word stereotype should remind us we are studying a limited form of reasoning, certainly not capable of exhibiting all forms of intelligence.

Here is an example of what I will call stereotypical reasoning. The choice of the tiger stereotype follows Putnam. If Benjamin tells you that during his trip in India, hiking in the jungle, he saw a tiger, you will assume he saw a large, frightening animal, yellow with black stripes. Note that not all tigers are such. Some tigers are small, dead, or albino. You have been using the stereotype that says that tigers are big, dangerous and yellow with black stripes. The use of this stereotype may be a mistake: the end of the story may reveal this was an albino tiger, but, typically, the use of the stereotype is precisely what enables efficient communication, since Benjamin knows you have this stereotype (as he has) he assumes you will draw the corresponding conclusions and he intends you to draw those conclusions.

This simple example already suggests a number of questions, most of them will not be touched upon in this paper. What is the nature, or the structure of the stereotype tiger? Is it just a conjunction (or some other composition) of properties? In this work, we shall assume that yes, a stereotype is a set of possible states of affairs, but the proper treatment of prototypical categories in general may need a more sophisticated structure. Note, though, that we are not assuming (the classical view, attacked by Lakoff and others) that categories are sets (of models), far from that. We are only assuming that stereotypes are sets of models. In fact, the way stereotypes are used makes them function very much like the graded or radial categories of Lakoff.

How are such stereotypes acquired? This is certainly both deeply rooted in our physiology and a social process.

Why is this the right stereotype for tiger? Why is it any better than some other? Here, an analysis of rationality and utility is certainly needed.

What made you apply the tiger stereotype to the little story above and not, for example, the jungle stereotype that says that, in the jungle, everything is dark green, or the India stereotype, whatever this is for you? In this paper this choice will be modeled by some distance between the information at hand and the stereotype. We shall not be able to explain why a specific distance is used. Such an explanation would certainly be based on utility considerations.

## 3 A formal model of stereotypical reasoning

Informally, starting from information about the situation at hand, one chooses the best stereotype to fit the information and uses both the original information and the stereotypical information to draw conclusions.

Formally, we assume $`W`$ is the set of all possible states of affairs (i.e., models or situations). We assume a collection (not necessarily finite, but it may well be finite) of stereotypes, $`S_i`$. Notice we use lower indexes to identify the stereotypes. Each stereotype is a subset of $`W`$, the set of situations in which the stereotype holds. For example the tiger stereotype, $`S_{tiger}`$ could be the set of all models in which tigers are frightening live animals, yellow with black stripes.

The user has some information, i.e., facts, about the situation at hand. This information is modeled by a subset $`F`$ of $`W`$: the set of all situations compatible with the information at hand. On the basis of $`F`$, the reasoner picks up one of the stereotypes: $`S^F`$, the stereotype most appropriate to $`F`$, in a way that will be discussed later. Notice we use here an upper index to denote the stereotype that best fits some information $`F`$. The reasoner will then conclude that the actual state of affairs is one of the members of the intersection $`F^{}\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}FS^F`$. The nonmonotonicity of the reasoning stems from this jump from $`F`$ to the subset $`F^{}`$. Clearly, we do expect the set $`F^{}`$ to be non-empty, assuming $`F`$ is non-empty, since we want to avoid jumping to contradictory conclusions. It will be the task of the function that defines the best stereotype to pick a stereotype that has a non-empty intersection with the information $`F`$ at hand. In many cases the facts $`F`$ are given by a formula $`\alpha `$ that is known to be true. In this case $`F`$ is the set of all models that satisfy $`\alpha `$. We shall identify the formula $`\alpha `$ and the set of its models and write $`S^\alpha `$ for the stereotype most appropriate for the sets of models of $`\alpha `$. A formula $`\beta `$ is then nonmonotonically deduced from $`\alpha `$ iff it is satisfied by all elements of $`F^{}`$, that is iff any model $`m`$ in the set $`S^\alpha `$ that satisfies $`\alpha `$ satisfies $`\beta `$: $`\alpha \text{ }\beta `$ iff $`mS^\alpha `$, $`m\alpha `$ implies $`m\beta `$.

Syntactically, this may be described as taking for $`𝒞(X)`$, the set of nonmonotonic consequences of a set $`X`$ of formulas, the set $`𝒞n(X,g(X))`$, of all formulas that logically follow from the set $`Xg(X)`$, where $`g(X)`$ is the set of formulas that hold in all models of the stereotype that best fits $`X`$.

Our analysis of stereotypical reasoning will use the simplistic model just described, since it is good enough for the purpose of this paper. If one thinks of first-order languages and models, one may want to refine this model and associate a stereotype with each one of the objects of the structure: e.g., if our story refers to two tigers about which one has different information, one will perhaps use different stereotypes for each of the tigers: a mother tiger stereotype and a pup tiger stereotype for example.

Before we analyze some consequences of this model, let us point out some of its basic limitations. It is assumed that the conclusions from facts $`F`$ are drawn by identifying a unique stereotype most appropriate for $`F`$. One may ask whether this should be the case. Instead of picking up a single stereotype, perhaps one should consider the set of all most appropriate stereotypes and use them all, i.e. their intersection. Indeed the results of next section would hold also in this more general model, but the uniqueness assumption will be needed later. Intuitively it seems to me that we do pick up a unique stereotype, sometimes made up of different stereotypes, but that this composition is almost never the simple juxtaposition, i.e., conjunction of stereotypes. The main reason probably is that such conjunctions are very often empty and we certainly want to avoid drawing inconsistent conclusions from consistent facts. Consider, for example, our tiger above. We did not use both the tiger and the jungle stereotypes because they clash about the color of the tiger: yellow and black vs. dark green. It may be the case that a very smart reasoner will use a tiger in the jungle stereotype, that implies the tiger is barely visible, but this stereotype, though including, somehow, both the tiger and the jungle stereotypes, cannot be reduced to their conjunction. To avoid premature commitment to a theory of the formation of compound stereotypes, this paper will just assume any set $`F`$ of facts is associated with a unique stereotype.

## 4 First consequences of the model

As general as it is, the model presented above has some important consequences for the formal properties of the process of nonmonotonic deduction it defines, i.e., of the consequence relation $`\text{ }`$.

First, since what is defined by facts $`F`$ is a set of models, $`F^{}`$, the set of nonmonotonic consequences of $`F`$, i.e., the set of formulas that hold in all elements of $`F^{}`$ is a logical theory, i.e., closed under logical consequence. In other terms, the relation $`\text{ }`$ satisfies the rules of Right Weakening and And of . Secondly, since $`F^{}`$ is a subset of $`F`$, any formula that is logically implied by $`F`$ holds in all elements of $`F^{}`$, or, the relation $`\text{ }`$ satisfies the Reflexivity of . Lastly, since the information at hand is represented, semantically, by a set of models, the relation $`\text{ }`$ satisfies Left Logical Equivalence.

## 5 Further assumptions

The main purpose of this work is to consider whether other, more sophisticated, logical properties may be expected from stereotypical reasoning. It is clear that, in the very general model described above, without further assumptions, nothing more can be expected: given any relation $`\text{ }`$ satisfying Left Logical Equivalence, Reflexivity, Right Weakening and And, one may define, for any formula $`\alpha `$, the stereotype $`S^\alpha `$ to be the set of all models that satisfy all the formulas $`\beta `$ such that $`\alpha `$ $`\text{ }`$$`\beta `$. Since the relation $`\text{ }`$ is reflexive, all models of $`S^\alpha `$ satisfy $`\alpha `$ and, for any $`\alpha `$, $`S^\alpha F^\alpha `$. Therefore $`F^\alpha S^\alpha =S^\alpha `$ and the nonmonotonic consequence relation defined by the model is exactly $`\text{ }`$.

Our goal is to find some additional, reasonable, assumptions about the set of stereotypes or the way the best stereotype for a set $`F`$ is chosen that will have interesting consequences on the nonmonotonic logic defined. In fact, the set of stereotypes and its structure does not seem to play an important role here and we shall concentrate on the choice of the best stereotype.

Notice that the mapping from a set $`F`$ to its best stereotype $`S^F`$ may be very wild. We do not expect, for example, that $`F^{}F`$ should imply $`S^F^{}S^F`$. It may well be the case that robins is the best stereotype for birds, but the best stereotype for antarctic birds is, for lack perhaps of knowledge of a better one, vertebrates.

It is extremely helpful to consider the process of associating to the set $`F`$ the stereotype $`S^F`$ as based on some notion of distance between information sets and stereotypes: the best stereotype for $`F`$ is the stereotype closest to $`F`$:

$$d(F,S^F)d(F,S),\mathrm{for}\mathrm{every}\mathrm{stereotype}S.$$
(1)
Notice that this notion of distance is a bit unusual, since it is defined only from information sets to stereotypes. We shall never use the notion of the distance from a stereotype to an information set. The assumption that our choice is based on some notion of a distance does not limit the generality of our model, since one may always find a suitable distance to fit any choice of best stereotype. The interest of this assumption is that it suggests some natural additional assumptions on the properties of this distance. Those assumptions will be related to logical properties of the nonmonotonic deduction.

Let us suppose $`D`$ is a partially ordered set (of distances) and that there is a function $`d`$ that associates an element of $`D`$ $`d(F,S)`$ with every set of models $`F`$ (in fact every set of models that could appear as an information set would be enough) and every stereotype $`S`$. A first assumption, already described above, is that this distance always enables us to pick a unique best stereotype.

* Assumption zero: for any given information set $`F`$ there exists a unique stereotype $`S^F`$ such that $`d(F,S^F)d(F,S)`$ for any stereotype $`S`$.

A number of examples of models and choice functions will be described. They may not be very intuitively appealing, but their purpose is to help the reader understand our definitions and prove the consistency of the assumptions that shall be made below. In all examples the set $`D`$ of distances is taken to be the set of integers, eventually with $`\mathrm{}`$ added.

###### Example 1

There is one stereotype only: $`S_0`$ and $`S_0=W`$. The exact definition of the distance is irrelevant. Assumption zero is satisfied trivially and, for any $`F`$, $`S^F=S_0=W`$. Clearly, for any $`F`$, $`F^{}=FS^F=F`$, and therefore $`F^{}`$ is non-empty if $`F`$ is. The non-monotonic logic defined happens to be monotonic and to be the classical one: $`\alpha `$ $`\text{ }`$$`\beta `$ iff $`\alpha \beta `$.

###### Example 2

Assume the set $`W`$ is finite. Every set $`SW`$ is a stereotype and

$$d(F,S)=SFSF,$$

where $`A`$ indicates the cardinality of the set $`A`$. Since $`d(F,F)=Fd(F,S)`$ for any $`S`$, we see that, for any $`F`$, $`S^F=F`$, and therefore assumption zero is satisfied, $`F^{}=F`$ and the logic defined is the classical one as in Example 1.

###### Example 3

Assume the set $`W`$ is the set of natural numbers. Stereotypes are singletons of $`W`$. Distances are defined in the following way: if $`nF`$, $`d(F,\{n\})=n`$ and if $`nF`$, $`d(F,\{n\})=\mathrm{}`$. Clearly $`S^F`$ is the singleton that contains the minimal element of $`F`$, $`\mathrm{min}(F)`$ and assumption zero is satisfied. Note also that $`F^{}=\mathrm{min}(F)`$ is non-empty if $`F`$ is non-empty. The model boils down to considering that world $`m`$ is more probable than world $`n`$ iff $`m<n`$. The logic defined results in, given a set of possibilities $`F`$, jumping to the conclusion that the most probable one must obtain. This provides a highly nonmonotonic consequence relation.

The next example presents a simple, but natural, family of models.

###### Example 4

Assume $`W`$ is finite and the set of (non-empty) stereotypes $`S_i`$, $`i=0,\mathrm{},k1`$ provides a partition of $`W`$, i.e., $`_{ik}S_i=W`$ and $`S_iS_j=\mathrm{}`$, for any $`ij`$. Given a set $`F`$, we associate with it the stereotype $`S_j`$ which covers $`F`$ best, i.e., for which the size of the set $`SF`$ is minimal. In case this criterion does not define a unique stereotype, choose the stereotype with smallest index. Formally we may define the distance by: $`d(F,S_i)=S_iF+\frac{i}{k}`$. The consequence relation defined is nonmonotonic.

After these examples, let us consider interesting properties of the distance $`d`$. Since $`F`$ and $`S`$ are both sets of models (subsets of $`W`$) we may, without loss of generality, assume that $`d(F,S)=e(FS,SF,FS)`$. Three additional assumptions concerning the way the function $`e`$ depends on each of its three arguments are now natural.

* Assumption one: the function $`e`$ is anti-monotone in its first argument. I mean that if $`AA^{}`$, then $`e(A^{},B,C)e(A,B,C)`$. The relation $``$ is the subset relation. This assumption is very natural: $`d(F,S)`$ measures the closeness of $`F`$ and $`S`$: the more they have in common, the closer they are. In most cases we expect that the best stereotype for $`F`$ should be consistent with $`F`$, i.e., have an non-empty intersection with $`F`$. If this is the case, our assumption is only slightly stronger: all other things being equal, the best stereotype for $`F`$ has the largest intersection with $`F`$. The set $`FS^F`$ represents the nonmonotonic consequences of $`F`$; we prefer weaker consequences, therefore we prefer to take the set $`FS^F`$ as large as possible.
* Assumption two: the function $`e`$ depends monotonically on its second argument. Here I mean that if $`BB^{}`$, then $`e(A,B,C)e(A,B^{},C)`$. The second argument, $`B=SF`$ measures the set of models compatible with the stereotype but excluded by the information. Notice that the stereotype may be vague, i.e., contain a large number of elements: for example the bird stereotype may include birds of many colors, and the information at hand may exclude a lot of those elements: for example we may know the bird we are discussing is yellow. The more such elements are excluded by the information at hand, the less suitable is the stereotype: if too many such elements are excluded a more specific stereotype may be more suitable. In our example, a yellow bird stereotype, if there is one such stereotype, should be preferred.
* Assumption three: the function $`e`$ does not depend on its third argument. It seems easy to justify that the function $`e`$ should depend monotonically on its third argument, by an argument very similar to that used for justifying assumption two. It is perhaps a little less obviously natural that $`e`$ should not depend at all on its third argument. But, notice that the set $`FS`$ is a measure of the strength of our nonmonotonic inference: the larger it is the more nonmonotonic consequences we get in addition to the monotonic ones. The argument just above is to the effect we should not get too many such inferences, but we are certainly interested in getting such nonmonotonic consequences, and should not try to minimize them. Our assumption is that how much nonmonotonicity we get should not be a criterion in choosing the best stereotype.

Assumptions one to three may be summarized by the following: for any $`F`$, $`F^{}`$ and any stereotypes $`S`$, $`S^{}`$, if

$$F^{}S^{}FS\mathrm{and}SFS^{}F^{}\mathrm{then}d(F,S)d(F^{},S^{}).$$
(2)
Proof:

$$d(F,S)=e(FS,SF,FS)e(F^{}S^{},S^{}F^{},F^{}S^{})=d(F^{},S^{})$$

One may notice that Equation 2 implies that $`d(F,S)=d(FS,S)`$. Let us consider the examples above again. In Example 1, we may define the distance $`d`$ to be constant, for example $`d(F,S)=0`$. Equation 2 is obviously satisfied. In Example 2 also, Equation 2 is obviously satisfied. In Example 3, let us check that Equation 2 is satisfied. Since stereotypes are singletons, $`F^{}S^{}FS`$ implies that either $`F^{}S^{}=\mathrm{}`$, or $`S^{}=S=F^{}S^{}=FS`$. In the first case $`d(F^{},S^{})=\mathrm{}`$ and the result holds. In the second case, if $`S=\{n\}`$, $`d(F,S)=n=d(F^{},S^{})`$. For Example 4, if $`F^{}S^{}FS`$ then, either $`F^{}S^{}=\mathrm{}`$, or $`S^{}=S`$. If $`SFS^{}F^{}`$, then either $`SF=\mathrm{}`$ or $`S^{}=S`$. If $`S^{}=S=S_i`$,

$$d(F,S)=SF+\frac{i}{k}S^{}F^{}+\frac{i}{k}=d(F^{},S^{}).$$

If $`S^{}=S_jS=S_i`$, $`F^{}S^{}=\mathrm{}`$ and $`SF=\mathrm{}`$,

$$d(F,S)=\frac{i}{k}<\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}1}S^{}S^{}+\frac{j}{k}.$$

Equation 2 is satisfied.

In the sequel we shall assume, sometimes without recalling this explicitly, that the distance $`d`$ satisfies Equation 2.

Our main result is that stereotypical reasoning yielded by a distance that satisfies the four assumptions above: i.e., uniqueness of the closest stereotype, antimonotonicity of the distance $`d(F,S)`$ in $`FS`$, monotonicity in $`SF`$ and independence from $`FS`$, is cumulative . The main result is therefore the following.

###### Theorem 1

If $`FS^FF^{}F`$, then $`S^F^{}=S^F`$.

Proof: Assume $`FS^FF^{}F`$. We must show that, for any stereotype $`S`$, we have $`d(F^{},S^F)d(F^{},S)`$. First, since $`FS^FF^{}`$, we have both $`FS^FF^{}S^F`$ and $`S^FF^{}S^FF`$, therefore, by Equation 2, we have $`d(F^{},S^F)d(F,S^F)`$. By Equation 1, for any stereotype $`S`$, $`d(F,S^F)d(F,S)`$ and therefore, for any $`S`$, $`d(F^{},S^F)d(F,S)`$. Using, now, $`F^{}F`$, we see that $`F^{}SFS`$ and $`SFSF^{}`$. By Equation 2, then, $`d(F,S)d(F^{},S)`$, and $`d(F^{},S^F)d(F^{},S)`$, for any stereotype $`S`$.

###### Corollary 1

The nonmonotonic consequence relation $`\text{ }`$ defined by stereotypical reasoning yielded by a distance that satisfies Equation 2 satisfies Cut and Cautious Monotonicity and is therefore cumulative.

Proof: Suppose $`\alpha `$ $`\text{ }`$$`\beta `$. Let $`F`$ be the set of models of $`\alpha `$ and $`F^{}`$ be the set of models of $`\alpha \beta `$. The assumption $`\alpha `$ $`\text{ }`$$`\beta `$ means that all elements of $`FS^F`$ satisfy $`\beta `$, i.e., $`FS^FF^{}`$. But clearly $`F^{}F`$. By Theorem 1, $`S^F^{}=S^F`$ and $`FS^F=F^{}S^F^{}`$ and $`\alpha `$ $`\text{ }`$$`\gamma `$ iff $`\alpha \beta `$ $`\text{ }`$$`\gamma `$.

Karl Schlechta  has found a cumulative consequence relation $`\text{ }`$ that cannot be defined by any stereotypical reasoning system yielded by a distance that satisfies Equation 2. The exact characterization of those cumulative relations that can be defined by stereotypical systems that satisfy Equation 2 is open. In the next section, we shall discuss another basic logical property of nonmonotonic system described in , Or, i.e., preferentiality.

## 6 Preferentiality

Suppose each one of two information sets, $`F`$ and $`F^{}`$ enable us to conclude that some formula $`\alpha `$ holds: all elements of $`FS^F`$ and all elements of $`F^{}S^F^{}`$ satisfy $`\alpha `$. Does this imply that the union $`FF^{}`$ enables us to conclude $`\alpha `$, i.e., do all elements of $`(FF^{})S^{FF^{}}`$ satisfy $`\alpha `$? The discussion of  explains why this seems to be a natural property to expect. For example, assuming we would conclude that a bird that lives in the country flies, and that we would also conclude that a bird that lives in a city flies. Must we conclude that birds that live either in the country or in a city fly? Stereotypical reasoning does not always satisfy this property for the following reason. I guess that natural common-sense reasoning does not either, for the same reason. Suppose $`\beta `$ and $`\gamma `$ describe very different situations, whose best stereotypes are different. It may happen, nevertheless that the same property $`\alpha `$ will be shared both by models of $`\beta S^\beta `$ and of $`\gamma S^\gamma `$. But the best stereotype for $`\beta \gamma `$ may be very general and some models of, say, $`\beta S^{\beta \gamma }`$ may not satisfy $`\alpha `$. Intuitively, if the reasons for concluding $`\alpha `$ from $`\beta `$ are very different from those for concluding $`\alpha `$ from $`\gamma `$, there is little hope we shall be able to conclude $`\alpha `$ from the disjunction $`\beta \gamma `$.

There is one interesting case, though, the case $`S^F=S^F^{}`$, in which the desired conclusion follows if we strengthen one of the assumptions above. Since the function $`e`$ does not depend on its third argument, by Assumption three, we shall write it as a function of two arguments. Let us assume:

* Assumption four: $`e(AA^{},B)=\mathrm{min}\{e(A,B),e(A^{},B)\}`$.

Clearly, assumption one already implies $`e(AA^{},B)\mathrm{min}\{e(A,B),e(A^{},B)\}`$ and assumption four implies assumption one.

###### Theorem 2

Let assumptions zero–four be satisfied. If $`S^F=S^F^{}`$, then $`S^{FF^{}}=S^F`$.

Proof: Notice that we do not claim that the nonmonotonic consequence relation defined is preferential. Assume $`S^F=S^F^{}`$. We must show that, for any stereotype $`S`$, we have $`d(FF^{},S^F)d(FF^{},S)`$. Then,

$$d(FF^{},S_F)=e((FS_F)(F^{}S_F^{}),S_F(FF^{}))$$

$$e(FS_F,S_FF)=d(F,S_F)d(F,S).$$

Similarly $`d(FF^{},S_F)d(F^{},S)`$ and

$$d(FF^{},S_F)\mathrm{min}\{d(F,S),d(F^{},S)\}=d(FF^{},S).$$

The last equality stems from assumption four.

Consider our examples above. In Example 1, the function $`d`$ is constant and therefore satisfies condition four. The consequence relation, being classical, is in fact preferential. In Example 2, the function $`d`$ proposed does not satisfy assumption four, nevertheless the relation defined is preferential. In Example 3, the function $`d`$ satisfies assumption four. The consequence relation defined, being classical, is in fact preferential. In Example 4, assumption four holds, and therefore the conclusions of Theorem 2, but the consequence relation defined is not preferential.

## 7 Conclusion

A formal description of stereotypical reasoning has been provided. Under reasonable assumptions about the way stereotypes are attached to information sets, this model yields a cumulative system. The assumptions one–three concerning the distance between information sets and stereotypes may perhaps be tested experimentally. Preferentiality has been discussed, and found unplausible in general, but a more limited natural property has been put in evidence. Again, preferentiality should be tested experimentally. The conditions proposed above that imply good logical behavior are sufficient but not necessary. Other conditions may be more natural and also sufficient. The structure of the set $`S`$ of stereotypes, in particular, has been left completely arbitrary. A reasonable assumption may be that this set has a tree structure: i.e., that if $`S`$ and $`T`$ are any two stereotypes such that the intersection $`ST`$ is not empty, then $`ST`$ or $`TS`$.

## 8 Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the members of the different audiences that reacted to the material above, while it was in gestation, and in particular to Yuri Gurevich, Pierre Livet, Drew McDermott, Karl Schlechta and Moshe Vardi. This work was partially supported by the Jean and Helene Alfassa fund for research in Artificial Intelligence and by grant 136/94-1 of the Israel Science Foundation on “New Perspectives on Nonmonotonic Reasoning”.


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# Comment on ”Magnetic Relaxations of Antiferromagnetic Nanoparticles in Magnetic Fields”

In a recent Letter , Mamiya et al. presented a new and elegant experimental procedure to control the initial Field-Cooled Magnetization, $`M_{FC}`$, of the magnetic relaxations of ferritin under study. They use a step-by-step cooling from $`T`$= 35 K to the relaxation experimental temperature, $`T_0`$= 8-9 K, while a magnetic field, $`H=H_0T/T_0`$, is applied at each step to eliminate time- and cooling rate-dependences of $`M_{FC}`$. From the temperature behavior of the time magnetic relaxation curves, recorded at temperatures between 8 K and 9 K, they concluded that relaxation in ferritin is essentially dominated by classical activated process. Moreover, they analyzed the field dependence of the magnetic viscosity extracted from the slopes of the relaxation curves recorded at different final fields, $`H_f`$= 0,-$`H_0`$. They found that magnetic viscosity at $`T`$= 8 K was independent of field. The authors finally concluded that magnetic relaxations of ferritin in magnetic fields are dominated by classical superparamagnetic fluctuations in the temperature regime where thermally assisted Resonant Spin Tunneling (RST) has been discussed in recent years.

Let us first to point out that we agree with the interpretation the authors do of their results in the temperature range 8-9K in terms of thermal activated relaxation. However, it is of great importance to clarify that there is not any paper (from those cited by Mamiya et al.) in which activated quantum tunneling has been used to explain relaxation phenomena of ferritin in this high temperature range, $`T`$ 8-9 K. From magnetic viscosity measurements, Tejada et al.  reported resonant quantum tunneling at zero field at temperatures around 4-5 K. These results were confirmed by Luis et al.  by a.c. susceptibility measurements at low temperature. It is clear that a decrease of the viscosity with small fields around the blocking temperature, $`T_B`$ = 8 K, is due to the large variation of the number of unblocked magnetic moments. The same phenomena was observed at lower temperatures with higher fields , where $`S(H)`$ shows a maximum at a given field which decreases when the temperature increases. Recently, new experimental results on magnetic relaxation of ferritin confirm both pure quantum tunneling behavior between 0.1 K and $``$2 K and thermally activated quantum tunneling up to $``$5 K , through magnetic viscosity measurements in the absence of magnetic fields in the relaxation processes.

We have also used both the Field-Cooling method and data analysis of Mamiya et al.  to study time relaxation in ferritin at $`T`$= 5 K, where RST was reported . We have used FLUKA commercial diluted ferritin. We have measured time magnetic relaxation from different initial fields, $`H_0`$, to two final fields, $`H_f`$= 0, -$`H_0`$, from $`H_0`$= 5 Oe up to $`H_0`$= 800 Oe. In figure 1 we show the field dependence of the ratio between the slopes of the relaxation curves for $`H_f`$= -$`H_0`$ and $`H_f`$= 0, normalized with 1/2 to take into account the difference between the equilibrium magnetizations. Figure 1 is divided in two zones: For $`\frac{S_{H_f=H_0}}{S_{H_f=0}}>1`$ (gray zone), the system relaxes faster with field than without field, indicating that the relaxation is governed by thermal processes; For $`\frac{S_{H_f=H_0}}{S_{H_f=0}}<1`$ (white zone), the relaxation is faster at zero field, in agreement with RST interpretation. As one can observe in figure 1, at $`T`$= 5 K, zero field relaxation in ferritin is bigger than field relaxation for fields below 500 Oe. The biggest difference ($``$80$`\%`$) is observed at $`H`$= 5 Oe, where the ratio between viscosities is minimum, in good agreement with the zero field resonant width, $`\mathrm{\Delta }H_{eff}`$5 Oe, found through Landau-Zener relaxation experiments by Duran et al. .

FIGURE CAPTIONS

Figure 1: Ratio between non-zero-field and zero-field viscosities as a function of the magnetic field, $`H_0`$, recorded at $`T`$= 5 K in ferritin.


text:
# Magneto-chiral scattering of light: a new optical manifestation of chirality

## I Introduction

The breaking of fundamental symmetries of nature manifests itself in various new optical phenomena and is essential for our understanding of the interaction between light and complex matter. One well-known example is the natural optical activity discovered by Arago in 1811, a nonlocal optical response in media that have broken mirror symmetry, named chiral media. Another example is the magnetically induced optical activity, first observed by Faraday in 1846  and associated with the breaking of time-reversal symmetry by a magnetic field. Although physically distinct, the two effects manifest themselves quite similarly in homogeneous media as a rotation of the linear polarization of light. This resemblance has motivated numerous works, pioneered by Pasteur , to search for a link between optical activity and the Faraday effect, but in vain. The existence of an optical effect providing such a link is only allowed to occur under conditions where both mirror and time-reversal symmetries are simultaneously broken. The cross-effect between natural and magneto optical activity is called the magneto-chiral (MC) effect and was first predicted in 1962 , followed by studies in crystalline materials . The MC effect was later again predicted independently several times , both for absorption and for refraction.

In order to deduce the MC effect in homogeneous and isotropic media, let us consider the propagation of light with wavevector $`𝐤`$ through a magneto-optically active chiral medium with dielectric tensor $`\epsilon `$ under the influence of a static magnetic field $`𝐁`$. Expanding $`\epsilon `$ to first order in $`𝐤`$ and $`𝐁`$, we have :

$$\epsilon _{ij}(\omega ,𝐤,𝐁)=\epsilon (\omega )\delta _{ij}+\alpha (\omega )iϵ_{ijl}k_l+\beta (\omega )iϵ_{ijl}B_l+\gamma (\omega )(𝐁k)\delta _{ij}$$
(1)
where $`ϵ_{ijk}`$ is the Levi-Civita tensor, $`\omega /2\pi `$ is the optical frequency and $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ are associated with the natural and magneto-optical activity, respectively. The last term of Eq. (1) describes the MC effect in homogeneous and isotropic media. It is important to point out some of the major features related to this effect. Firstly, it depends on the relative orientation of k and B. Secondly, the effect has opposite sign for the two different chiral enantiometers. Finally, it is independent of the state of polarization of light. Aside from its fundamental value for the understanding of the interaction between light and matter and the underlying symmetry principles that govern it, the MC effect in absorption has been suggested to be at the origin of the homochirality of life , since it allows enantioselective photochemistry in a magnetic field with unpolarized light . Unfortunately, the magnitude of the molecular MC effect is very weak (typically of the order of $`10^6`$) since it can be regarded, as discussed above, as a cross-effect between two already small effects, the natural and magneto optical activity. That’s why the MC effect has only been reported recently: in absorption by Rikken and Raupach , and in refraction by Kleindienst et al.  and Vallet et al. . Also the electrical analogue of the MC effect was recently reported .

In the present paper, we study the MC effect in scattering of light. We have investigated multiple light scattering by magneto-optically active scatterers distributed in a chiral configuration under the influence of an external magnetic field. This approach is completely different from the traditional molecular one that has been employed to model the MC effect . Multiple light scattering has been studied for scatterers exhibiting rotatory power . In our model magneto-chirality is a collective effect built up by multiple scattering. One single scatterer does not exhibit MC effects since it is not made of a material that is natural optically active. However, an assembly of magneto-optically active particles distributed in a chiral configuration should generate MC effects since in such a system both mirror and time-reversal symmetry are broken.

In order to investigate how scattering is affected by the MC effect, we have calculated, to our knowledge for the first time, the differential and the total cross-sections for a system composed by an arbitrary number of magneto-optically active scatterers in a magnetic field. We have investigated if these quantities are sensitive to the degree of chirality associated with the geometrical configuration of the scatterers in space, and have concluded that scattering in MC media constitutes a new optical manisfestation of chirality, in addition to the well-known rotatory power. A new optical parameter is introduced to quantify the chirality associated with the spatial geometry, which we have calculated for some simple chiral systems. We have also employed this parameter to probe the chirality of random systems, which are in general chiral. Finally, we have compared it to recently defined chiral measures in literature .

This paper is organized as follows. In Sec. II we briefly explain how to quantify chirality and we explore this concept to define a new optical chiral parameter based on the scattering properties of MC media. In Sec. III we calculate this parameter for the simplest chiral geometry, the so-called “twisted H”, whereas in Sec. IV we employ it to quantify the degree of chirality of random scattering systems. Finally, in Sec. V we summarize the main results of this paper.

## II Multiple scattering in magneto-chiral media

There are several scattering systems eligible for MC effects. The most obvious of them could be a system composed by an assembly of MC scatterers (i.e., made of a material exhibiting both the Faraday effect and natural optical activity). In order to study such a system, one should know precisely how an individual MC object scatters light. Mathematically, this means that the scattering $`T`$ matrix of this object should be known. However, to our knowledge, no calculation exists for such a $`T`$ matrix. Alternatively, it is possible to generate the MC effect in scattering systems by considering magneto-optically active scatterers distributed in chiral geometries. This is the kind of system that will be treated in the present work. Before we describe the light scattering properties of such system, it is instructive to make some general considerations about chirality itself and how one can quantify the degree of chirality associated with an arbitrary object or a distribution of scatterers in space. Afterwards, we will discuss how a chiral configuration of scatterers affects the properties of the light scattered in MC media.

### A What is chirality and how to quantify it?

By definition, a chiral object is an object whose mirror image cannot be rotated to coincide with itself. It can be readily seen that this implies to have at least four particles for the system to be chiral. A three-particle system is necessarily achiral since it is always contained in a plane, which is automatically its mirror plane.

Recent work has addressed the problem whether chirality can be quantified or measured, in as much the same way that one can quantify the degree of order of a ferromagnet. Despite the ubiquity of chirality in nature (almost all arbitrary microscopic and macroscopic objects are chiral, from DNA to a piece of rock) and the important role played by chirality in several areas of research, from pharmaceutics to liquid crystals  and to the origin of life , only recently real progress has been made. One of the first attempts to establish a quantitative measure of chirality is due to Gilat . Osipov et al.  have developed a molecular measure of chirality based on the behaviour of the response functions that characterize molecular optical activity. Harris et al.  have proposed a new elegant way, based on group theory, to measure the degree of chirality exhibited by a geometric object. They have constructed a variety of rotationally invariant pseudoscalars and have applied them to quantify the degree of chirality of molecules of arbitrary shape, showing how these parameters govern a particular observable, such as the pitch of a cholesteric liquid crystal  and the optical rotatory power .

The choice for a chiral “order” parameter is not unique , but must always be a pseudoscalar invariant under rotations. This last fact guarantees that no rotation of the object exists that maps the mirror image of a chiral object onto itself.

In what follows, we will describe the scattering properties of an assembly of magneto-optically active dipoles in a magnetic field.

### B Scattering by magneto-optically active particles

In our model, we deal with dielectric pointlike magneto-optical scatterers (i.e., radiative dipoles much smaller than the wavelength of light) located in vacuum. This model enables us to find exactly all scattering properties (i.e., the off-shell $`T`$ matrix) of any number of scatterers in analytic form and without any further approximation. This model exhibits a scattering resonance, where the scattering cross-section of a single scattering reaches its maximum value. The $`3\times 3`$ $`T`$ matrix for a single scattering takes the form :

$$𝐭(𝐁,\omega )=(t_0t_3)𝐔+t_1𝚽+t_2\mathrm{𝐁𝐁},$$
(2)
where $`𝐔`$ is the unitary matrix, $`t_0`$ is the ordinary Rayleigh $`T`$ matrix, $`𝚽`$ is the antisymmetric Hermitian tensor $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{ij}=iϵ_{ijk}B_k`$ and the complex-valued parameters $`t_1,t_2,t_3`$ are defined in Ref. . The knowledge of the single scattering $`T`$ matrix in Eq. (2) allows us to obtain the total $`3N\times 3N`$ $`T`$ matrix of an assembly of $`N`$ magneto-optical scatterers situated at the positions $`𝐫_1,𝐫_2,\mathrm{},𝐫_N`$:

$$𝐓_{𝐤,𝐤^{^{}}}=\left(\begin{array}{c}e^{i𝐤r_1}\\ :\\ e^{i𝐤r_N}\end{array}\right)^{}𝐭(𝐔𝐆𝐭)^1\left(\begin{array}{c}e^{i𝐤^{}r_1}\\ :\\ e^{i𝐤^{}r_N}\end{array}\right),$$
(3)
where $`𝐤`$ and $`𝐤^{^{}}`$ are, respectively, the incident and the scattered wave vectors, and $`|𝐤^{}|=|𝐤|=k`$. The elements of the $`3N\times 3N`$ $`𝐆`$-matrix are equal to the Green functions calculated from the relative positions of the scatterers :

$$𝐆_{NM}=\{\begin{array}{c}\frac{\mathrm{exp}(ikr_{_{NM}})}{4\pi r_{_{NM}}}\text{ }\left\{\left[𝐔\widehat{𝐫}_{_{NM}}\widehat{𝐫}_{_{NM}}\right]\left(\frac{1}{ikr_{_{NM}}}+\frac{1}{(kr_{_{NM}})^2}\right)\left[𝐔3\widehat{𝐫}_{_{NM}}\widehat{𝐫}_{_{NM}}\right]\right\}\text{ for }NM,\\ 0\text{for }N=M.\end{array}$$
(4)
The set of Eqs. (3) form a system of linear equations that determines the electric field scattered by the magneto-optical particles, and its solution requires the diagonalization of the $`3N\times 3N`$ scattering matrix :

$$𝐌(k)𝐭(k)[𝐔𝐆(k)𝐭(k)]^1.$$
(5)
We have modified the numerical code developed by Rusek and Orlowski  in order to diagonalize the scattering matrix $`𝐌(k)`$ in Eq. (5) for Faraday-active scatterers. This provides the scattered field amplitude for particles distributed in an arbitrary spatial configuration:

$`f(\sigma 𝐤\sigma ^{^{}}𝐤^{^{}})=𝐠_\sigma ^{}𝐟(𝐤𝐤^{^{}})𝐠_\sigma ^{}\text{ with}`$ (6)
$`𝐟(𝐤𝐤^{^{}})={\displaystyle \underset{NM}{}}𝐌^{NM}\mathrm{exp}(i𝐤𝐫_N)\mathrm{exp}(i𝐤^{^{}}𝐫_M),`$ (7)
where $`𝐠_\sigma `$ and $`𝐠_\sigma ^{^{}}`$ are, respectively, the incident and scattered polarization vectors (expressed in the circular polarization basis) and the sum is performed over all scatterers. Since the Faraday effect is a small perturbation to the scattering, we will expand $`𝐟`$ linearly in the magnetic field, $`𝐟=𝐟^0+𝐟^1`$, with $`𝐟^1`$ given by:

$$𝐟^1(𝐤𝐤^{^{}},𝐁)=\frac{k}{4\pi }\alpha (B)\underset{NMN^{^{}}}{}(𝐌_0^{NM}𝚽𝐌_0^{MN^{^{}}})\mathrm{exp}(i𝐤𝐫_N)\mathrm{exp}(i𝐤^{^{}}𝐫_N^{^{}}),$$
(8)
where $`\alpha (B)`$ is a dimensionless quantity that measures the strength of the magnetic field and $`𝐌_0`$ is the $`3\times 3`$ scattering matrix for $`𝐁=0`$. For an atom subject to the Zeeman effect, $`\alpha (B)`$ is typically the ratio between the Zeeman splitting and the resonance linewidth . The corresponding magneto extinction cross section $`\sigma _{ext}^1(𝐁,𝐤)`$, linear in the magnetic field and integrated over all scattered angles, can be obtained from the optical theorem :

$`\sigma _{ext}^1(𝐁,𝐤)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k}}\text{Im}{\displaystyle \underset{\sigma }{}}f^1(\sigma 𝐤\sigma 𝐤)`$ (9)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha (B)}{4\pi }}\text{Im}{\displaystyle \underset{NMN^{^{}}}{}}\text{Tr}\left(𝐌_0^{NM}𝚽𝐌_0^{MN^{}}𝚫_𝐤\right)\mathrm{exp}\left[i𝐤\left(𝐫_N𝐫_N^{}\right)\right],`$ (10)
where $`(𝚫_𝐤)_{ij}\delta _{ij}k_ik_j/k^2`$ is the projector upon the space of transverse polarization, normal to $`𝐤`$. Notice that we have traced over polarization, which means that the Faraday effect itself cancels and that only MC effects remain. Eq. (8) can be regarded as the magneto dichroism of the multiple scattering system, associated with the energy removed from the incident beam due the application of an external magnetic field.

Until now, nothing was said about how the light scattering properties of magneto-optically active particles are affected by the chiral configuration and, more important, how these properties can be related to a measure of the degree of chirality. We recall that any chiral measure must be rotationally invariant. This implies that we must perform an average over all solid rotations in the expression (8) for $`\sigma _{ext}^1(𝐁,𝐤)`$ in order to estimate magneto-optical chirality. The angularly averaged magneto extinction cross-section in MC media must necessarily have the form:

$$\sigma _{ext}^1(𝐁,𝐤)_{4\pi }=g\alpha (B)(\widehat{𝐁}\widehat{𝐤}),$$
(11)
where $`g`$ is some pseudoscalar and the brackets $`\mathrm{}_{4\pi }`$ denote the average over all solid rotations. This is mathematically equivalent to an average over the vectors $`𝐤`$ and $`𝐁`$ with fixed mutual orientation. Equation (9) is manifestly rotationally invariant and obeys the two fundamental symmetry relations, parity and reciprocity, in MC media, as can easily be verified. Using Eqs. (8) and (9), we can write $`g`$ as:

$$g\frac{1}{4\pi }\text{Im}\underset{NMN^{^{}}}{}\text{Tr}\left(𝐌_0^{NM}𝚽_k𝐌_0^{MN^{}}𝚫_𝐤\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(i𝐤𝐫_{NN^{}}\right)_{𝐤4\pi },$$
(12)
where $`𝐫_{NN^{}}𝐫_N^{}𝐫_N`$ and $`(\mathrm{\Phi }_𝐤)_{ilm}=iϵ_{ilm}k_m`$. Notice that, since $`𝐌_0^{NM}`$ depend only on the positions of the scatterers $`\left\{𝐫_N\right\}`$ and not on $`\widehat{𝐤}`$, they will not be affected by the average. Consequently, the term into the brackets in Eq. (10) involves an average of the type $`\widehat{𝐤}(1\widehat{𝐤}\widehat{𝐤})\mathrm{exp}(i𝐤𝐫)_{𝐤4\pi }`$, that can be obtained analytically as:

$$\widehat{k}_i\left(\delta _{jk}\widehat{k}_j\widehat{k}_k\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(i𝐤r\right)_{𝐤4\pi }=i\widehat{r}_i\delta _{jk}j_1(kr)i\left[\widehat{r}_i\delta _{jk}+\widehat{r}_j\delta _{ik}+\widehat{r}_k\delta _{ij}\right]\frac{j_2(kr)}{kr}+ij_3(kr)\widehat{r}_i\widehat{r}_j\widehat{r}_k,$$
(13)
where $`j_n(x)`$ is the spherical Bessel function of the first kind and of order $`n`$. In addition, since $`(M_0^{NM})_{ij}=(M_0^{MN})_{ji}`$, we have $`\text{Tr}(𝐌_0^{NM}𝚽_k𝐌_0^{MN^{}})=\text{Tr}(𝐌_0^{N^{}M}𝚽_k𝐌_0^{MN})`$. As a result, the terms with $`N=N^{}`$ in the sum of Eq. (10) vanish. Consequently, we can simplify Eq. (10) to:

$$g=\frac{1}{2\pi }\text{Im}\underset{N^{^{}}<N,M}{}i\text{Tr}\left(𝐌_0^{NM}𝚽_k𝐌_0^{MN^{}}𝚫_𝐤\right)\mathrm{sin}\left(𝐤𝐫_{NN^{}}\right)_{𝐤4\pi }.$$
(14)
This clearly represents a pseudoscalar, since under a mirror operation $`\left\{𝐫_N\right\}`$ and $`𝐌_0(\left\{𝐫_N\right\})`$ transform as $`𝐫_N𝐫_N`$ and $`𝐌_0(\left\{𝐫_N\right\})𝐌_0(\left\{𝐫_N\right\})=𝐌_0(\left\{𝐫_N\right\})`$. Inserting Eq. (11) into Eq. (12), it follows that:

$`g={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }}\text{Re}{\displaystyle \underset{N^{}<N,M}{}}\text{Tr}\left(𝐌_0^{NM}𝚽_{\widehat{𝐫}_{NN^{}}}𝐌_0^{MN^{}}\right)\left[j_1(kr_{NN^{}}){\displaystyle \frac{j_2(kr_{NN^{}})}{kr_{NN^{}}}}\right]`$ (15)
$`+\left(\widehat{𝐫}_{NN^{}}𝐌_0^{NM}𝚽_{\widehat{𝐫}_{NN^{}}}𝐌_0^{MN^{}}\widehat{𝐫}_{NN^{}}\right)j_3(kr_{NN^{}}).`$ (16)
The second observable of interest is the angular distribution of the light scattered by all particles. With this purpose, we have calculated the differential magneto cross section linear in $`𝐁`$, $`\frac{d\sigma ^1}{d\mathrm{\Omega }}(\sigma 𝐤\sigma ^{^{}}𝐤^{^{}},𝐁)`$, using the relation:

$$\frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }}(\sigma 𝐤\sigma ^{^{}}𝐤^{^{}},𝐁)=\frac{|f^0(\sigma 𝐤\sigma ^{^{}}𝐤^{^{}})+f^1(\sigma 𝐤\sigma ^{^{}}𝐤^{^{}},𝐁)|^2}{(4\pi )^2},$$
(17)
where $`f^0(\sigma 𝐤\sigma ^{^{}}𝐤^{^{}})`$ is the scattering field amplitude independent of $`𝐁`$. Using Eq. (7) to calculate $`f^1(\sigma 𝐤\sigma ^{^{}}𝐤^{^{}})`$ and inserting the resulting expression into Eq. (14) one obtains, after summing over outgoing polarization and after averaging over incident polarization:

$$\frac{d\sigma ^1}{d\mathrm{\Omega }}=2\frac{k\alpha (B)}{(4\pi )^3}\text{Re}\underset{NN^{^{}}LML^{}}{}\text{Tr}\left(𝚫_𝐤𝐌_0^{NN^{}}𝚫_𝐤^{}𝐌_0^{ML^{}}𝚽𝐌_0^{LM}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left[i𝐤𝐫_{NL}+i𝐤^{}𝐫_{N^{}L^{}}\right].$$
(18)
Since we are interested in scattering quantities sensitive to chirality, we will again perform an average of the scatterers positions over all rotations in Eq. (15), as we have done for the total MC cross-section. The calculation of the angularly averaged differential cross section linear in $`𝐁`$ $`\frac{d\sigma ^1}{d\mathrm{\Omega }}(\sigma 𝐤\sigma ^{^{}}𝐤^{^{}},𝐁)_{4\pi }`$ implies the construction of a rotationally invariant scalar from the three vectors $`𝐁`$, $`𝐤`$ and $`𝐤^{}`$. It can be verified that the only possible form for $`\frac{d\sigma ^1}{d\mathrm{\Omega }}(\sigma 𝐤\sigma ^{^{}}𝐤^{^{}},𝐁)_{4\pi }`$ obeying parity and reciprocity relations is:

$$\frac{d\sigma ^1}{d\mathrm{\Omega }}(\sigma 𝐤\sigma ^{^{}}𝐤^{^{}},𝐁)_{4\pi }=(𝐤𝐤^{})𝐁(𝐤\times 𝐤^{})+𝒞(𝐤𝐤^{})𝐁(𝐤+𝐤^{})$$
(19)
where $`(𝐤𝐤^{})`$ is a scalar representing the Photonic Hall effect  whereas $`𝒞(𝐤𝐤^{})`$ is a pseudoscalar associated with the MC effect. We can thus explicitely obtain an expression for the function $`𝒞(𝐤𝐤^{})`$ using Eq. (15) and by putting $`\widehat{𝐁}=\widehat{𝐤}`$ in Eq. (16).

In the following, we will numerically calculate $`g`$ and $`\frac{d\sigma ^1}{d\mathrm{\Omega }}(\sigma 𝐤\sigma ^{^{}}𝐤^{^{}},𝐁)_{4\pi }`$.

## III Scattering chiral measures for the Twisted H

The “twisted H”, depicted in Fig.1, has the convenient property that its chiral properties depend in a simple way on the angle $`\gamma `$ between its arms. In Fig. 2 we have numerically calculated the parameter $`g`$ in Eq. (13) for four magneto-optically active pointlike scatterers placed at the vertices of the twisted H as a function of the angle $`\gamma `$ for two different values of the wavelength $`\lambda `$ of the incident light. Each scatterer was set on resonance with the incident radiation, i.e., we set $`\lambda =\lambda _0`$. In addition, $`g`$ was normalized by the normal extinction cross-section of the system, which can, for the set parameters used here, be adequately approximated by $`\sigma _0=N\sigma _r`$ (where $`N=4`$ and $`\sigma _r=3\lambda _0^2/2\pi `$ is the on-resonance extinction cross-section for one scatterer) since we are in the independent scattering regime. In Fig. 2 we see that $`g`$ exhibits an oscillatory behavior as a function of the angle $`\gamma `$ and vanishes exactly at the configurations for which the H is achiral. These configurations correspond to the angles $`\gamma =n\pi /2`$, with $`n`$ integer. If the value of the incident wavelength is modified, the dependence of $`g`$ on $`\gamma `$ changes, as one can see in Fig. 2, but $`g`$ still vanishes at the same angles. For different values of the wavelength $`\lambda `$, $`g`$ may also vanish at other values of $`\gamma `$, but the zeros required by symmetry (at the achiral configurations) remain unchanged. For comparison, we show by a dotted line the chiral parameter $`\psi \mathrm{sin}(2\gamma )`$ for the twisted H proposed by Harris et al.  which, for the set of values $`kr=2.0`$ and $`kd=6.0`$, nicely follows our optical parameter $`g`$.

In Fig. 3, we have numerically calculated the differential MC cross section averaged over all solid rotations, $`\frac{d\sigma ^1}{d\mathrm{\Omega }}(\sigma 𝐤\sigma ^{^{}}𝐤^{^{}},𝐁)_{4\pi }`$, for the “twisted H” as a function of the angle $`\gamma `$ and for the particular case where $`𝐤𝐁`$ and $`𝐤𝐤^{}`$. We observe again its oscillatory dependence on $`\gamma `$ and, like $`g`$, its cancelation for achiral configurations. This means that the intensity of the light scattered by an assembly of magneto-optically active particles under the influence of a magnetic field can also be regarded as an optical manifestation of the degree of chirality associated with the geometrical configuration of these scatterers in space.

In spite of its simplicity, the “twisted H” is an illustrative example of a chiral system. The results presented here could be experimentally verified by means of light scattering measurements performed in samples composed by identical Faraday-active “twisted H” molecules dispersed in a liquid. In the single scattering regime this directly provides the optical parameters $`g`$ and $`\frac{d\sigma ^1}{d\mathrm{\Omega }}(\sigma 𝐤\sigma ^{^{}}𝐤^{^{}},𝐁)_{4\pi }`$.

In the following, we will focus our attention on multiple scattering of light by randomly distributed particles.

## IV Probing the chirality of random scattering systems

A system composed of a large number of randomly distributed particles will in general be chiral. Our purpose will be to quantify the degree of chirality of this kind of system using the scattering parameter $`g`$ defined in Eq. (13). We have numerically calculated $`g`$ for 1000 different random configurations of $`N`$ scatterers distributed in a sphere of radius $`R`$ and volume $`V`$, and have studied the behavior of $`g`$ as a function of $`N`$ for two distinct situations: increasing $`N`$ upon keeping $`V`$ constant and increasing $`N`$ upon keeping the density $`\rho =N/V`$ of the scatterers constant.

In Fig. 4, we show a typical histogram for the values of $`g`$ for 1000 realizations of $`N=10`$ scatterers randomly distributed in a sphere. The histogram shows a distribution centered at the origin, as expected on the basis of the law of large numbers. Since we have a large number of realizations of the disorder, the mirror image of any configuration is equally probable, so that $`g=0`$. We will consider the variance $`\mathrm{\Delta }g\sqrt{g^2g^2}`$ of $`g`$ as a candidate to probe the typical degree of chirality of an arbitrary random configuration.

In Fig. 5, we plot the values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$ as a function of the number of particles distributed in a sphere with $`\rho `$ constant. The variances $`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$ were determined by taking the full width at half maximum of the Gaussian fit to the histograms of $`g`$ for $`1000`$ different realizations of the disorder (see Fig. 4). One relevant dimensionless parameter in the problem is the quantity $`\zeta \frac{4\pi \rho }{k^3}`$, which is essentially the number of particles per cubic wavelength. For the value of $`\rho `$ chosen in Fig. 5 we have $`\zeta 0.01`$, which means that we are in the so-called independent scattering regime and that only the first orders of scattering are relevant. This allows us to normalize $`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$ in Fig. 5 by $`\sigma _0=N\sigma _r`$. As expected, $`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$ vanishes for $`N=2,3`$, since it is impossible to generate a chiral configuration with only two or three particles. In addition, we observe that the normalized $`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$ increases until it reaches, for roughly $`N=30`$ particles in the sphere, an asymptotic value of approximately $`\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }g}{\sigma _0}1.35`$ x $`10^4`$. For comparison, we also show in Fig. 5 the behaviour of the variance $`\mathrm{\Delta }\psi `$ of the chiral parameter $`\psi `$ proposed by Harris et al.  as a function of $`N`$. The comparison between the two curves in Fig. 5 clearly reveals that the two chiral measures $`g`$ and $`\psi `$, are, statistically speaking, proportional. The observed relation of proportionality between $`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\psi `$ is given by:

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }g}{\sigma _0}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\psi }{R^8}\lambda ^3,$$
(20)
showing that we can establish a correspondence between the optical chiral measure $`g`$ and the purely geometrical one $`\psi /R^8`$ by multipling the latter by the optical quantity $`\lambda ^3`$. This demonstrates that the correspondence between $`g`$ and $`\psi `$ is valid not only for the “twisted H” case discussed in Sec. III, but applies more generally to random systems.

In Fig. 6, $`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\psi `$ are shown as a function of $`N`$ if $`V`$ is kept constant, i.e., where $`\rho `$ was varied. In this case, $`\zeta 0.00025N`$. We observe that both $`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\psi `$ increase linearly with the number of scatterers. The comparison between $`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\psi `$ in Fig. 6 confirms, for $`\rho `$ constant, the relation of proportionality between these two chiral parameters. In order to understand the linear dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$ on $`N`$ we recall that we need at least four particles to constitute a chiral system. This suggests to consider the chiral parameter $`g`$ as the sum of the contributions of groups of four particles, with random sign but with fixed absolute value $`g_4`$. Since $`g=0`$ and since $`\left(\begin{array}{c}N\\ 4\end{array}\right)`$ distinct forms exist to group four particles together, we can estimate the normalized $`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$ as:

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }g}{\sigma _0}=\frac{\sqrt{g^2}}{N\sigma _r}\frac{1}{N}\sqrt{\left(\begin{array}{c}N\\ 4\end{array}\right)(g_4)^2}.$$
(21)
Taking the limit $`N\mathrm{}`$ and noticing by the analysis of Eq. (13) that $`g_41/(kR)^3`$, we can rewrite Eq. (18) as:

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }g}{\sigma _0}\frac{\sqrt{N(N1)(N2)(N3)}}{N(kR)^3}\frac{N}{(kR)^3}+\mathrm{}\rho \lambda ^3+\mathrm{}\text{ }.$$
(22)
This heuristic argument confirms the linear dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$ on $`N`$ observed in Fig. 6 for large $`N`$. However, for larger densities (typically for $`\zeta 1`$) this relation is lost.

## V Summary and Conclusion

In this paper we have investigated scattering of light in magneto-chiral (MC) media. In order to generate MC effects, we have studied multiple light scattering from chiral geometries of magneto-optically active pointlike scatterers. We have calculated, for the first time, the total and the differential scattering cross-section of such media, showing that they are proportional to pseudoscalars quantities. We have concluded that light scattering in MC media is sensitive to the degree of chirality exhibited by the geometrical distribution of the scatterers in the space. This constitutes a new optical manifestation of chirality, in addition to the well-known optical rotatory power. We have introduced in Sec. II a new parameter $`g`$ to measure or to quantify the degree of chirality of an arbitrary configuration of particles subject to MC effects, whose construction is based on the light scattered properties by such a configuration. As a genuine MC parameter, $`g`$ is linear in the external magnetic field and independent of the polarization, contrary to the optical rotatory power. We have shown that $`g`$ is a pseudoscalar and vanishes for configurations composed of two or three particles, as required for any chiral measure.

In Sec. III we have numerically calculated $`g`$ for scatterers placed on the vertices of one of the simplest chiral objects, the “twisted H”. We have shown that $`g`$ vanishes when the H is achiral. Furthermore, $`g`$ has the same sinusoidal behaviour $`g\mathrm{sin}(2\gamma )`$ as the chiral order parameter $`\psi `$ defined by Harris et al.  for the “twisted H”. In Sec. IV we have calculated $`g`$ for $`N`$ randomly distributed scatterers in a sphere of volume $`V`$ and density $`\rho `$, a system which will, in general, be chiral. We have studied the behaviour of the variance $`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$ as a function of $`N`$ for two distinct cases: increasing $`N`$ upon keeping $`\rho `$ constant and increasing $`N`$ upon keeping $`V`$ constant, i.e., increasing $`\rho `$. We have concluded that the variances $`\mathrm{\Delta }g`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\psi `$ are proportional.

###### Acknowledgements.

We gratefully acknowledge G. Düchs, G. Rikken, G. Wagnière, M. Rusek and A. Orlowski for fruitful discussions. This work was supported by the Polonium contract 03290 VK of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. One of us (F.A.P.) also wishes to thank CNPq/Brazil for financial support.