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# Spatiotemporal adaptation through corticothalamic loops: A hypothesis

## Introduction

It has long been an intriguing problem that cortical feedback to the thalamus is the anatomically dominant input to relay cells, yet the modulation it effects in their responses seems to be ambiguous. Experiments and theoretical considerations have suggested a variety of operations of the visual cortex on the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN), such as attention-related gating of geniculate relay cells (GRCs) \[Sherman & Koch, 1986, Koch, 1987\], synchronizing firing of GRCs \[Sillito et al., 1994, Singer, 1994\], increasing mutual information between GRCs’ retinal input and their output \[McClurkin et al., 1994\], and switching GRCs from a detection to an analyzing mode \[Sherman & Guillery, 1996, Godwin et al., 1996\]. Most of the current speculations, however, fall short of a clear, integrated view of corticothalamic function. Detailed concepts of the relationship between thalamic and cortical operation still remain to be established so as to advance our ideas about complex sensory, and ultimately cognitive, processing. In the present article we provide support for a role of corticogeniculate loops in complex visual motion processing.

In the A laminae of cat LGN two types of X relay cell have been identified that dramatically differ in their temporal response properties \[Mastronarde, 1987a, Humphrey & Weller, 1988a, Saul & Humphrey, 1990\]. Those that are more delayed in response time and phase have been termed lagged, the others nonlagged cells (with the exception of very few so-called partially lagged neurons). In particular, the peak response of lagged neurons to a moving bar is about 100 ms later than that of nonlagged neurons \[Mastronarde, 1987a\]. Lagged X cells comprise about 40 % of all X relay cells \[Mastronarde, 1987a, Humphrey & Weller, 1988b\]. Physiological \[Mastronarde, 1987b\], pharmacological \[Heggelund & Hartveit, 1990\], and structural \[Humphrey & Weller, 1988b\] evidence suggests that rapid feedforward inhibition via intrageniculate interneurons plays a decisive role in shaping the lagged cells’ response. Some authors have additionally related differences in receptor types to the lagged-nonlagged dichotomy \[Heggelund & Hartveit, 1990, Hartveit & Heggelund, 1990\]; see, however, Kwon et al. (1991).

Layer 4B in cortical area 17 of the cat is the target of both lagged and nonlagged geniculate X cells \[Saul & Humphrey, 1992a, Jagadeesh et al., 1997, Murthy et al., 1998\]. The spatiotemporal receptive fields (RFs) of its direction-selective simple cells can routinely be interpreted as being composed of subregions that receive geniculate inputs alternating between lagged and nonlagged X type \[Saul & Humphrey, 1992a, Saul & Humphrey, 1992b, DeAngelis et al., 1995, Jagadeesh et al., 1997, Murthy et al., 1998\]. At least for simple cells in layer 4B, this RF structure determines the response to moving visual features \[McLean & Palmer, 1989, Reid et al., 1991, DeAngelis et al., 1995, Jagadeesh et al., 1993, Jagadeesh et al., 1997, Murthy et al., 1998\], and thus the cell’s tuning for direction and speed111To avoid confusion, we point out that the term ‘speed tuning’ is sometimes used in a more restricted sense. Simple cells exhibit tuning for spatial and temporal frequencies that results in preference for speeds of moving grids depending on their spatial frequency. Here we will be concerned with the more natural case of stimuli having a low-pass frequency content \[Field, 1994\], specifically, those composed of local features such as thin bars..

Certainly, intracortical input to cortical cells contributes to direction-selective responses, given that these inputs anatomically outnumber thalamic inputs \[Ahmed et al., 1994\]. Suggested intracortical effects include sharpening of tuning properties by suppressive interactions \[Reid et al., 1991, Hirsch et al., 1998, Crook et al., 1998\] and amplification of geniculate inputs by recurrent excitation \[Douglas et al., 1995, Suarez et al., 1995\]. Intracortical circuits can in principle even generate their own direction selectivity by selectively inhibiting responses to nonpreferred motion \[Douglas et al., 1995, Suarez et al., 1995, Maex & Orban, 1996\]. Our modeling is complementary to the latter in that we emphasize the influence of geniculate inputs on cortical RF properties that is suggested by numerous studies \[Saul & Humphrey, 1992a, Saul & Humphrey, 1992b, Reid & Alonso, 1995, Alonso et al., 1996, Ferster et al., 1996, Jagadeesh et al., 1997, Murthy et al., 1998, Hirsch et al., 1998\], in order to bring out effects that are specific to the geniculate contribution to spatiotemporal tuning.

Thalamocortical neurons possess a characteristic blend of voltage-gated ion channels that jointly determine the timing and pattern of Na+ spiking in response to a sensory stimulus. Depending on the initial membrane polarization, the GRC response to a visual stimulus is in a range between a tonic and a burst mode \[Sherman & Guillery, 1996\]. At hyperpolarization, a Ca2+ conductance gets de-inactivated and, on activation, promotes burst firing. Although the issue is still controversial, there is evidence that a mixture of burst and tonic spikes is involved in the transmission of visual signals in lightly anesthetized or awake animals \[Guido et al., 1992, Guido et al., 1995, Guido & Weyand, 1995, Mukherjee & Kaplan, 1995, Sherman & Guillery, 1996, Reinagel et al., 1999\]. In nonlagged neurons a burst component is present at resting membrane potentials below roughly -70 mV and constitutes a very early part of a visual response \[Lu et al., 1992, Guido et al., 1992, Mukherjee & Kaplan, 1995\]. In lagged neurons bursting seems to be responsible for high-activity transients seen after the offset of feedforward inhibition; in particular, it is contributing substantially to the delayed peak response to a moving bar \[Mastronarde, 1987b\].

Cortical feedback to the A laminae of the LGN, arising mainly from layer 6 of area 17 \[Sherman & Guillery, 1996\], can locally modulate the response mode, and hence the timing, of GRCs by shifting their membrane potentials on a time scale that is long as compared to retinal inputs. This may occur directly through the action of metabotropic glutamate and NMDA receptors (depolarization) \[McCormick & von Krosigk, 1992, Godwin et al., 1996, Sherman & Guillery, 1996\] and indirectly via the perigeniculate nucleus (PGN) or geniculate interneurons by activation of GABAB receptors (hyperpolarization) of GRCs \[Crunelli & Leresche, 1991, Sherman & Guillery, 1996\]. Indeed, GRCs in vivo are dynamic and differ individually in their degree of burstiness \[Lu et al., 1992, Guido et al., 1992, Mukherjee & Kaplan, 1995\]. Here we explicate the causal link between the variable response timing of GRCs and variable tuning of cortical simple cells for speed of moving features, thus identifying control of speed tuning as a likely mode of corticothalamic operation. Moreover, we exemplify the computational power of the hypothesized control mechanism in a model of corticogeniculate loops that performs object segmentation based on motion cues.

## Geniculate input to the cortex

The first object of our study is the geniculate input to a cortical neuron in layer 4B.

### Model of the primary visual pathway

For the GRCs we have employed a 12-channel model of the cat relay neuron \[Huguenard & McCormick, 1992, McCormick & Huguenard, 1992\], adapted to 37 degrees Celsius. It includes a transient and a persistent Na+ current, several voltage-gated K+ currents, a voltage- and Ca2+-gated K+ current, a low- and a high-threshold Ca2+ current, a hyperpolarization-activated mixed cation current, and Na+ and K+ leak conductances. As shown in Fig. 1a, retinal input reaches a GRC directly as excitation, and indirectly via an intrageniculate interneuron as inhibition, thus establishing the typical triadic synaptic circuit found in the glomeruli of X GRCs \[Sherman & Guillery, 1996\]. The temporal difference between the two afferent pathways equals the delay of the inhibitory synapse and has been taken to be 1.0 ms \[Mastronarde, 1987b\].

It is known that both NMDA and non-NMDA receptors contribute to retinogeniculate excitation to varying degrees, ranging from almost pure non-NMDA to almost pure NMDA mediated responses in individual GRCs of both lagged and nonlagged varieties \[Kwon et al., 1991\]. At least in lagged cells, however, early responses and, hence, responses to the transient stimuli that will be considered here, seem to depend to a lesser degree on the NMDA receptor type than late responses \[Kwon et al., 1991\]. Since the essential characteristics of lagged and nonlagged responses apparently do not depend on the special properties of NMDA receptors – an assumption confirmed by our results – we chose the postsynaptic conductances in GRCs to be of the non-NMDA type.

The time course of postsynaptic conductance change in GRCs following reception of an input has been modeled by an alpha function,

$$\mathrm{g}(t>0)=g_{\mathrm{syn}}\frac{t}{\tau _{\mathrm{syn}}}\mathrm{exp}\left(1\frac{t}{\tau _{\mathrm{syn}}}\right).$$
(1)
For excitation, the rise time $`\tau _{\mathrm{syn}}`$ has been chosen to be 0.4 ms \[Mukherjee & Kaplan, 1995\], for inhibition it is 0.8 ms. The latter value was estimated from the relative durations of S potentials recorded at excitatory and inhibitory geniculate synapses \[Mastronarde, 1987b\] and was found to reproduce the rise times of inhibitory postsynaptic potentials recorded in relay cells following stimulation of the optic chiasm \[Bloomfield & Sherman, 1988\]. The reversal potentials are for excitation 0 mV, for inhibition $``$85.8 mV \[Bal et al., 1995\].

We have found typical lagged responses for strong feedforward inhibition with weak feedforward excitation, in agreement with Mastronarde (1987b), Humphrey & Weller (1988b), and Heggelund & Hartveit (1990). On the other hand, typical nonlagged responses are produced by weak feedforward inhibition with strong feedforward excitation; see Fig. 2. We have therefore implemented lagged and nonlagged relay cells in the model by varying the relative strengths of feedforward excitation and feedforward inhibition. For an explanation of lagged and nonlagged responses see the results below.

The model system comprises 100 lagged and 100 nonlagged relay neurons. Their RF centers are 0.5 degrees in diameter \[Cleland et al., 1979\] and are spatially arranged in a lagged and a nonlagged clusters subtending 0.7 degrees each and displaced by 0.45 degrees; see Fig. 1b. This layout matches the basic structure of an on or off region in a RF of a directional simple cell in cortical layer 4B onto which the GRCs are envisaged to project \[Saul & Humphrey, 1992a, Saul & Humphrey, 1992b, DeAngelis et al., 1995, Jagadeesh et al., 1997, Murthy et al., 1998\]. To complete the geniculate input to a RF of this type, this lagged-nonlagged unit would have to be repeated with alternating on-off polarity and a spatial offset that would determine the simple cell’s preference for some spatial frequency. Since we are not concerned here with effects of spatial frequency (see previous footnote 1), omission of the other on/off regions does not affect our conclusions. Results for rescaled RF geometries can be derived straightforwardly; see the results below. The number of geniculate cells contributing to the simple cell’s RF has been estimated roughly from Ahmed et al. (1994). Only its order of magnitude matters.

We have also taken into account feedback inhibition via the PGN \[Lo & Sherman, 1994, Sherman & Guillery, 1996\]; see Fig. 1a. Connections between PGN neurons and GRCs are all to all within, and separate for the lagged and nonlagged populations. Axonal plus synaptic delays are 2.0 ms in both directions.

Intrageniculate interneurons and PGN cells, like GRCs, posses a complex blend of ionic currents. They are, however, thought to be active mainly in a tonic spiking mode during the awake state \[Contreras et al., 1993, Pape et al., 1994\]. For an efficient usage of computational resources and time we have therefore modeled these neurons by the spike-response model \[Gerstner & van Hemmen, 1992\], which gives a reasonable approximation to tonic spiking \[Kistler et al., 1997\]. Note that for the present model it is irrelevant whether transmission across dendrodendritic synapses between intrageniculate interneurons and GRCs actually occurs with or without spikes; cf. Cox et al. (1998). For a relay neuron, all that matters is the fact that an excitatory retinal input is mostly followed by an inhibitory input \[Bloomfield & Sherman, 1988\]. The spike-response neurons have been given an adaptive spike output \[Gerstner & van Hemmen, 1992\], i.e., there is adaptation of transmission across the dendrodendritic synapses.

We have incorporated the influence of cortical feedback to the thalamus by varying the K+ leak conductivity of GRCs, which in turn controls their resting membrane potential \[McCormick & von Krosigk, 1992, Godwin et al., 1996\]; see Fig. 1a. All GRCs, lagged and nonlagged, have been assigned the same resting membrane potential; here we assume a uniform action of cortical feedback on the scale of single RFs in area 17. By varying the resting membrane potential we investigate a strictly modulatory role of corticogeniculate feedback, as opposed to the retinal inputs that drive relay cells to fire; cf. Sherman & Guillery (1996), Crick & Koch (1998).

The model is described by a high-dimensional system of nonlinear, coupled differential equations \[Huguenard & McCormick, 1992, McCormick & Huguenard, 1992\]. The input to GRCs was modeled as a set of Poisson spike trains with time-varying firing rates as recorded from retinal ganglion cells in response to moving, thin (0.1 degrees), long (10 degrees) bars \[Cleland & Harding, 1983\]. For numerical integration of the stochastic differential equations we used an adaptive fifth-order Runge-Kutta algorithm. The dynamics of spike-response neurons has been solved by exact integrals. Simulations were run on an IBM SP2 parallel computer.

We collected spike times with 0.1 ms resolution. For each velocity $`v`$ of bar motion tested, spikes of all 100 lagged/nonlagged relay cells were pooled. We calculated the total lagged/nonlagged response rates $`\mathrm{r}_\mathrm{l}(v,t)`$/$`\mathrm{r}_{\mathrm{nl}}(v,t)`$ as spike counts in 5 ms windows, a timescale relevant to postsynaptic integration, shifted by steps of 1 ms, i.e., $`t=1,2,\mathrm{}`$ ms. The velocity tuning of the pooled lagged/nonlagged peak rate per neuron is

$$\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{}}(v)=\frac{1}{100}\underset{t[t_\mathrm{i},t_\mathrm{f}]}{\mathrm{max}}\mathrm{r}_{\mathrm{}}(v,t),\mathrm{}=\mathrm{l},\mathrm{nl},$$
(2)
where the times $`t_\mathrm{i}`$ and $`t_\mathrm{f}`$ are chosen such that all responses lie in the interval $`[t_\mathrm{i},t_\mathrm{f}]`$.

We are primarily interested in the total geniculate input to a cortical simple cell. To this end, we have shifted lagged spikes by 2 ms to later times in order to account for the fact that the lagged cells’ conduction times to cortex are slightly longer than those of the nonlagged cells \[Mastronarde, 1987a, Humphrey & Weller, 1988a\]. Furthermore, although lagged responses in the LGN tend to be weaker than nonlagged responses \[Mastronarde, 1987a, Humphrey & Weller, 1988a, Saul & Humphrey, 1990\], they appear to be about equally effective in driving cortical simple cells \[Saul & Humphrey, 1992a\]. The cortical (possibly synaptic) cause being beyond the scope of this work, we simply have counted every lagged spike twice to obtain the velocity tuning of the effective geniculate input to a cortical cell,

$$\mathrm{R}(v)=\frac{1}{100}\underset{t[t_\mathrm{i},t_\mathrm{f}]}{\mathrm{max}}\left[2\mathrm{r}_\mathrm{l}(v,t2\mathrm{ms})+\mathrm{r}_{\mathrm{nl}}(v,t)\right].$$
(3)
The peak input rate per lagged-nonlagged pair $`\mathrm{R}(v)`$ is correlated with simple-cell activity because postsynaptic potentials are summed almost linearly in simple cells \[Jagadeesh et al., 1993, Kontsevich, 1995, Jagadeesh et al., 1997\].

The total geniculate input rate to a cortical neuron depends on (i) the magnitude of the pooled lagged and nonlagged response peaks, $`\mathrm{R}_\mathrm{l}(v)`$ and $`\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{nl}}(v)`$, respectively, and (ii) their relative timing. To differentiate between these two factors we have determined the times $`\mathrm{t}_\mathrm{l}(v)`$ and $`\mathrm{t}_{\mathrm{nl}}(v)`$ of the maxima of the lagged and nonlagged response rates, respectively,

$$\mathrm{t}_{\mathrm{}}(v)=\mathrm{arg}\underset{t[t_\mathrm{i},t_\mathrm{f}]}{\mathrm{max}}\mathrm{r}_{\mathrm{}}(v,t),\mathrm{}=\mathrm{l},\mathrm{nl},$$
(4)
and calculated the peak-time differences $`\mathrm{t}_{\mathrm{nl}}(v)\mathrm{t}_\mathrm{l}(v)`$ as a function of the bar velocity. Means and standard errors have been estimated from a sample of 30 sweeps at each bar velocity.

### Results for geniculate input to the cortex

For different values of the resting membrane potential, Fig. 3 shows in the columns from left to right the velocity tuning of the lagged population ($`\mathrm{R}_\mathrm{l}`$), of the nonlagged population ($`\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{nl}}`$), the peak-time differences ($`\mathrm{t}_{\mathrm{nl}}\mathrm{t}_\mathrm{l}`$) of their responses for the preferred direction, and the tuning of the total geniculate input (R) to a cortical cell for the preferred and nonpreferred direction of motion; see above for details. As in vivo, the lagged cells prefer lower velocities and have lower peak firing rates than the nonlagged cells \[Mastronarde, 1987a, Humphrey & Weller, 1988a, Saul & Humphrey, 1990\]. The key observation, however, is that the maximum of the total geniculate input rate to a cortical neuron shifts to lower velocities as the membrane potential hyperpolarizes; see Fig. 3 right column.

The total geniculate input rate R assumes its maximum at a velocity of bar motion where the peak discharges of the lagged and nonlagged neurons coincide, i.e., where $`\mathrm{t}_{\mathrm{nl}}\mathrm{t}_\mathrm{l}0`$. The shift of the maximum with hyperpolarization to lower velocities is produced by a corresponding shift of the peak-time differences $`\mathrm{t}_{\mathrm{nl}}\mathrm{t}_\mathrm{l}`$ and of the lagged tuning $`\mathrm{R}_\mathrm{l}`$, while the peak of the nonlagged tuning $`\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{nl}}`$ remains essentially unchanged. As is demonstrated in Fig. 2, the change in peak-time difference is due to (i) a shift of the lagged response peak to later times, and (ii) a shift of the nonlagged response peak to earlier times.

The reason for the opposite shifts of lagged and nonlagged response timing lies in the interaction of the low-threshold Ca2+ current with the different levels of inhibition received by lagged and nonlagged neurons. With only weak feedforward inhibition, nonlagged neurons respond to retinal input with immediate depolarization, eventually reaching the activation threshold for the Ca2+ current. If the Ca2+ current is in the de-inactivated state, it will boost depolarization and give rise to an early burst component of the visual response \[Lu et al., 1992, Guido et al., 1992\]. The lower the resting membrane potential, the more de-inactivated the Ca2+ current will be, and the stronger the early response component relative to the late tonic component. In an ensemble of neurons that receive retinal input at slightly different times, like the 100 nonlagged neurons with spatially scattered RFs (cf. Fig. 1b), this leads to a gradual shift of the ensemble-response maximum with membrane polarization. Lagged neurons, on the other hand, receive strong feedforward inhibition and, hence, initially respond to retinal input with hyperpolarization. Repolarization occurs when inhibition gets weaker due to declining retinal input rate or adaptation of the inhibitory input. With the Ca2+ current being de-inactivated by the excursion of the membrane potential to low values, lagged spiking starts with burst spikes as soon as the voltage reaches the Ca2+-activation threshold. This will take longer, if the resting membrane potential is lower, leading to the observed shift in response timing with membrane polarization.

Not surprisingly, the total geniculate input rate R is higher for the direction of bar motion where $`\mathrm{t}_{\mathrm{nl}}\mathrm{t}_\mathrm{l}`$ assumes lower values. In other words, the direction preferred is the one where the lagged cells receive their retinal input before the nonlagged cells; cf. Figs. 1b and 3 right column.

We have investigated the geniculate input to simple cells, which clearly cannot be compared with their output directly. Nonetheless it is interesting to note that, much like velocity tuning in areas 17 and 18 \[Orban et al., 1981\], the modeled geniculate input at the optimal velocity decreases and the tuning width increases with decreasing optimal velocity; see Fig. 3 right column.

Because of scaling properties of the retinal ganglion cells’ velocity tuning \[Cleland & Harding, 1983\], rescaled versions of the RF geometry shown in Fig. 1b produce accordingly shifted tuning curves (on a logarithmic speed scale). In particular, we retrieve the positive correlation between RF size and preferred speed found in areas 17 and 18 \[Orban et al., 1981\] from the geniculate input.

## The corticogeniculate loop

Once a dynamic gating mechanism for thalamocortical information transfer has been identified, one has to face the key question of how gating can be controlled. The computational goal of this control should certainly be an enhanced cortical representation of behaviorally relevant stimuli, generally referred to as objects, and suppression of less significant bits, such as neuronal noise and incoherent background motion. The general idea of object segmentation by adaptive velocity tuning is illustrated in Fig. 4. Since many details of corticothalamic circuits are not known yet and since we aim at a thorough analytical treatment of the closed-loop system for general stimulus statistics we have kept the modeling at this point at a more abstract level than in the above case. Moreover, the underlying principles are best exposed by a simple model.

### Model of the corticogeniculate loop

The membrane potential of GRCs is assumed to be modulated by feedback from cortical layer 6. The postsynaptic potential evoked in GRCs by a burst of layer 6 action potentials fired around time $`t_i`$ is

$$\mathrm{PSP}(tt_i)=\frac{tt_i}{\tau }\mathrm{exp}\left(1\frac{tt_i}{\tau }\right),\text{(}t>t_i\text{),}$$
(5)
that is, an alpha function. We are interested here specifically in the slow, modulatory effect of cortical input, mediated by NMDA and metabotropic glutamate receptors in the case of depolarization, and by GABAB receptors for hyperpolarization. The rise time $`\tau `$ for combinations of NMDA and metabotropic glutamate receptor responses and for GABAB receptor responses may be several 100 ms \[von Krosigk et al., 1999\], but is kept as a free parameter in the model, i.e., we do not specify a numerical value for $`\tau `$ throughout the analysis. We neglect corticothalamic delays, which are at least one order of magnitude smaller than $`\tau `$. In particular, for layer 6 projection neurons that are visually responsive and thus relevant to our model, they are mostly below 10 ms \[Tsumoto et al., 1978, Tsumoto & Suda, 1980\]. One can show that the inclusion of an adequate distribution of delays does not alter the general dynamic behavior of the system, but merely adds small corrections to some characteristic quantities.

As illustrated by Fig. 4, cortical feedback signals that carry information on local velocity measurements need to be sampled from an extended visual field, spanning several RFs of cells in the primary visual cortex. Lateral spread of information may be implemented either by intracortical connections, or by divergence in the corticogeniculate feedback pathway; cf. Fig. 5 right. Let us label all events of cortical responses to local features within the entire population of layer 6 neurons that feed back onto GRCs by an index $`i`$ according to their temporal order, i.e., $`t_1<t_2<\mathrm{}`$. Let furthermore $`\mathrm{N}(t)`$ be the number of such events until time $`t`$. The slow dynamics of a GRC’s membrane potential under cortical control then is

$$V(t)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{\mathrm{N}(t)}{}}A_i\mathrm{PSP}(tt_i)+V_0,$$
(6)
where $`A_i`$ is the amplitude of the $`i`$th event of cortical feedback that depends on the firing rate of a layer 6 neuron at time $`t_i`$. In this formulation the size of the layer 6 population in the adaptive system, and hence of the visual field from which motion information is integrated, is represented by the number of response events per time: the rate of events increases with the area from which motion is sampled.

Superimposed on the slow, cortically controlled dynamics \[eqn. (6)\] of GRCs’ membrane potentials is the relatively fast dynamics triggered by retinal input. The retinal input and its consequences have been the subject of study above. In the present model the dynamics of retinal input will not enter explicitly. Instead, we now care only for its cortical effect, that is, for cortical velocity tuning.

Cortical response rates in layer 4 to moving visual features such as bars are assumed to follow some kind of velocity-tuning function. We have demonstrated above that the velocity that produces the maximal convergent input from lagged and nonlagged geniculate relay cells is, not surprisingly, close to the velocity that yields coincident lagged and nonlagged response peaks, corresponding to $`\mathrm{t}_{\mathrm{nl}}(v)\mathrm{t}_\mathrm{l}(v)0`$; cf. Fig. 3 third column. In this spirit we define a layer 4 cell’s response rate to a feature moving with velocity $`v`$ into the cell’s preferred direction as

$$R=\mathrm{f}\left[|\mathrm{t}_{\mathrm{nl}}(v)\mathrm{t}_\mathrm{l}(v)|\right],$$
(7)
where f is some positive, monotonically decreasing function. For analytical treatment there will be some further restriction on f, to be formulated below. Moreover, we assume layer 4 cells not to respond to features moving in their null direction.

By looking at Fig. 3 third column, we see that the simulation data are roughly consistent with

$$\left[\mathrm{t}_{\mathrm{nl}}\mathrm{t}_\mathrm{l}\right](v,V)=\mathrm{s}(v)\mathrm{c}(V),$$
(8)
where s and c are monotonically decreasing functions of the stimulus velocity $`v`$ and the relay cells’ membrane potential $`V`$, respectively. This approximation seems to be better at higher membrane potentials. Velocity tuning is thus given by

$$R=\mathrm{f}\left[|\mathrm{s}(v)\mathrm{c}(V)|\right].$$
(9)
Note that this family of functions is rather general in that it fits a large set of velocity-tuning characteristics.

To obtain a physical interpretation of $`\mathrm{s}(v)`$ and $`\mathrm{c}(V)`$, we note that the naive understanding of the velocity-dependence of $`\mathrm{t}_{\mathrm{nl}}(v)\mathrm{t}_\mathrm{l}(v)`$ is that it arises from the visual feature crossing the lagged-nonlagged compound RF (see Fig. 1b) in a time proportional to $`1/v`$. Rewriting eqn. (8) as

$$\mathrm{c}(V)=\mathrm{t}_\mathrm{l}(\mathrm{t}_{\mathrm{nl}}\mathrm{s}),$$
(10)
it is evident that if s is the time it takes the visual feature to travel from the lagged RFs to the nonlagged RFs, c is the difference in response times intrinsic to the lagged and nonlagged populations. Appealing to this interpretation, we will write

$$s_i:=\mathrm{s}(v_i),\mathrm{RTD}(t):=\mathrm{c}[V(t)],R_i:=\mathrm{f}\left[|s_i\mathrm{RTD}(t_i)|\right],$$
(11)
and refer to $`s_i`$ as the stimulus passage time and to $`\mathrm{RTD}(t)`$ as the (dynamic) response time difference between the lagged and nonlagged populations. As above, the index $`i`$ enumerates the cortical response events in temporal order. The response of a layer 4 neuron is thus maximal, if the stimulus passage time equals the lagged-nonlagged response time difference.

We will use the simplest approximation for the dependence of the response time difference on the membrane potential,

$$\mathrm{RTD}(t)=\chi V(t)+\mathrm{RTD}_0,$$
(12)
that is, a linear function of $`V`$ with slope $`\chi `$ and offset $`\mathrm{RTD}_0`$.

In order to close the corticogeniculate loop, and the system of equations, we need a transformation of the layer 4 responses $`R_i`$ to the feedback signals of layer 6 cells, which in turn determine the amplitudes of postsynaptic potentials $`A_i`$ in GRCs. To this end, we have analyzed a simple implementation of cortical control. The rationale is that each cortical response $`R_i`$ to a stimulus $`s_i`$ triggers a postsynaptic potential of amplitude $`A_i`$ through feedback, either directly (depolarization, $`A_i>0`$), or via the PGN or geniculate interneurons (hyperpolarization, $`A_i<0`$), such that the response time difference $`\mathrm{RTD}(t)`$ is pulled closer to the stimulus passage time $`s_i`$.

For the computation of the feedback signal a layer 4 cell’s response activity serves as a measure of the amount of mismatch between $`\mathrm{RTD}(t_i)`$ and $`s_i`$: low activity indicates large mismatch, high activity signals a good match \[cf. eqn. (9)\]. The sign of mismatch is computed by comparing the outputs of layer 4 cells preferring the same direction but different speeds, corresponding to different values of $`V_0`$ in eqn. (6). A simple network of spike-response neurons, shown in Fig. 5 left, approximates these principles and provides the corresponding feedback signals to the LGN. More precisely, computer simulations of this network show that

$$A_i\gamma \mathrm{A}(R_i)\sigma (R_i^>R_i^<),$$
(13)
where A is some positive, monotonically decreasing function, $`\sigma `$ is a sigmoidal function running between $`1`$ and $`+1`$, and $`R_i^>`$, $`R_i^<`$ are response rates of layer 4 cells tuned to higher and lower speeds than the cell producing the response $`R_i`$. The factor $`\gamma `$ describes the overall strength of cortical feedback to the LGN. Eqn. (13) is the relation we used between layer 4 responses and amplitudes of GRC potentials. Note that it is the result of a simple transformation of the layer 4 activity to the feedback signals of layer 6 cells; cf. Fig. 5 left. Although a LGN-layer-4-layer-6-LGN loop of synaptic connections is indeed supported by anatomical data \[Katz, 1987, Sherman & Guillery, 1996\], our aim was primarily to investigate a network as simple as possible that can do the necessary computation.

For the above control mechanism to work, sets of cortical layer 4 neurons are required that have overlapping RFs and differ in speed tuning. It is not necessary, but conceptually most straightforward, to assume the same set of $`n`$ classes of neurons, defined by the initial values $`V_0^{(c)}`$ \[cf. eqn. (6)\], $`c=1,2,\mathrm{},n`$, of their membrane potentials, to represent each retinal location. Furthermore, we want to restrict our attention to cortical neurons that prefer one out of two opposite directions of motion. For each class $`c`$ of cortical neurons there are two variants selective for the two opposite directions, to be labeled by the superscripts $`(c,+)`$ and $`(c,)`$. The interaction between the “$`+`$” and the “$``$” population is taken to be such that features moving in opposite directions elicit PSP amplitudes $`A_i`$ of opposite signs in each GRC. This kind of antagonism ensures that the average adaptation to incoherent, directionally unbiased motion is zero and, hence, is vital to object segmentation; cf. Fig. 4. We will label the direction of a moving object by “$`+`$” and the opposite direction by “$``$”.

Counting stimulus passage times $`s_i`$ as positive in the “$`+`$” and negative in the “$``$” direction, the complete system dynamics is described by the equations

$`V^{(c,\pm )}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`\pm {\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{\mathrm{N}(t)}{}}}(\mathrm{sgn}s_i)A_i^{(c)}\mathrm{PSP}(tt_i)+V_0^{(c)},`$ (14)
$`R_i^{(c)}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{f}\left[|s_i\mathrm{RTD}^{(c,\mathrm{sgn}s_i)}(t_i)|\right],`$ (15)
$`\mathrm{RTD}^{(c,\pm )}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`\pm \left[\chi V^{(c,\pm )}(t)+\mathrm{RTD}_0\right],`$ (16)
$`A_i^{(c)}`$ $`=`$ $`\gamma \mathrm{A}(R_i^{(c)})\sigma (R_i^{(c+1)}R_i^{(c1)}).`$ (17)
In the last equation one may define $`c_0c_1`$ and $`c_{n+1}c_n`$ to deal with the lowest and highest values of the class index. The stimulus passage times $`s_i`$ and the times $`t_i`$ of the cortical responses are stochastic variables and depend on the statistics of the stimulus. Adaptation of velocity tuning and the dynamics of cortical responses are thus described as a stochastic process driven by the stimulus. Figure 5 attempts to give a picture of the complete system of corticothalamic loops.

The precise shapes of the functions f, A, and $`\sigma `$ are unimportant, as long as the combination $`\mathrm{A}\mathrm{f}`$ can be approximated reasonably well by a linear function within a relevant range of values. A full analytical treatment is possible for the limiting cases

$$\mathrm{A}\left[\mathrm{f}(|x|)\right]=|x|,\sigma (x)=\mathrm{sgn}(x).$$
(18)
Computer simulations were run using

$$\mathrm{A}\left[\mathrm{f}(|x|)\right]=\{\begin{array}{cc}|x|\hfill & \text{if }|x|<p\text{,}\hfill \\ p\hfill & \text{elsewhere.}\hfill \end{array},\sigma (x)=\mathrm{tanh}(qx),$$
(19)
with positive parameters $`p`$ and $`q`$.

### Results for the corticogeniculate loop

A detailed mathematical analysis will be published elsewhere. Here we describe the main results in the form of prose and present computer simulations for illustration.

When the system is stimulated by a coherently moving object on a background of incoherent, directionally unbiased motion, the layer 4 cells’ preferences approach the velocity of the object. This results in an enhanced representation of a coherent object and suppression of background features moving at different velocities, in accordance with the scheme formulated in Fig. 4. More specifically, with an absent or just a sparse background, the response time differences $`\mathrm{RTD}^{(c,+)}(t)`$, i.e., the preferences of neurons encoding motion in the object’s direction, settle in a stationary state close to the object’s passage time; see Fig. 6 top. As background is added to the stimulus, ongoing oscillations of the neurons’ preferences develop. These oscillations are more pronounced with a stronger background; see Fig. 6 middle and bottom. In other words, with a dense background, the dynamics is oscillatory and alternating between phases of close and poor matching of velocity preferences to the object’s velocity; see Fig. 6 bottom. We suggest to call the latter phenomenon a diffusion-sustained oscillation, emphasizing the diffusion-like drive away from a stationary state that is due to background features.

The response time differences $`\mathrm{RTD}^{(c,\pm )}(t)`$ of all layer 4 neurons in the system are correlated, both across space and class $`c`$. The correlation across space is the result of the lateral connectivity of the system; cf. Fig. 5 right. The correlation across classes is mediated by the stimulus; cf. Fig. 6. In particular, neurons of all classes $`(c,+)`$ are well tuned to an object’s speed at the same time. At such times, therefore, object features elicit strong responses in neurons of all classes $`(c,+)`$, yielding a high class-averaged response,

$$R^+:=\frac{1}{n}\underset{c=1}{\overset{n}{}}R^{(c,+)};$$
(20)
cf. eqn. (15). At other times the preferences of neurons not only are untuned with respect to the object, but also vary significantly across neurons of different classes $`c`$. Hence there are no strong class-averaged responses $`R^+`$, neither to an object, nor to background features.

In turns out that each time course of adaptation is associated with a certain spatiotemporal pattern of cortical activity. For an adaptation time course such as shown at the top of Fig. 6, there are permanent strong class-averaged responses $`R^+`$ to object features as soon as the RTDs have converged to the object’s passage time. On the other hand, an oscillatory time course as shown at the bottom of the figure is associated with alternating phases of weak and strong responses $`R^+`$, the strong responses being restricted to object features. In fact, the dynamic RTDs act as a pacemaker for distributed cortical activity. A periodic time structure is imposed that tends to synchronize the firing of layer 4 cells representing the object; see Fig. 7. Oscillations may show up in cortical single cell activity or in multi-unit activity, depending on the nature of the stimulus and the size of RFs. In particular, single neurons show periodic activity, if their responses last longer than one period of oscillation of the RTDs. Their response then comprises several “elementary” response events of the kind marked by a single dot in Fig. 7. The period scales with the rise time $`\tau `$ of the corticothalamic postsynaptic potentials \[see eqn. (5)\], and decreases to zero as the stimulus velocity or density becomes very large. Hence, the period can be much shorter than the duration of individual corticothalamic PSPs and even than their rise time $`\tau `$. The reason is that for a stimulus consisting of features moving at different velocities, PSPs are not initiated in isolation but superimposed upon other PSPs of opposite signs.

It is worth noting that a stationary stimulus background and neuronal noise are special cases of directionally unbiased background activity. The system thus also performs segmentation of an object moving across a stationary background and suppression of neuronal noise.

In the present context of stochastic dynamical systems, stability of the dynamics means that at least the first two moments (the mean and the variance) of the RTDs converge to finite values. It can be proved that stability is guaranteed, if $`\gamma `$, the overall strength of cortical feedback to the LGN \[cf. eqn. (13)\], is not too large.

To summarize, in this model corticogeniculate loops give rise to object segmentation based on global sampling of velocity features in the visual field. Visual features acquire an enhanced representation in the adaptive motion system by virtue of belonging to a coherent object. The temporal structure of adaptation and, hence, of cortical activity, depends on the statistics of stimulus and noise. With oscillatory dynamics, different objects detected by populations of neurons tuned to different directions of motion turn out to be represented through statistically independent phases of oscillation; cf. Gray et al. (1989). The model can be extended so as to include higher visual areas and in such a way that phases of oscillation become statistically independent for different two-dimensional (2D) directions of motion, i.e., the true directions not accessible to single area 17 cells.

As a consequence of the described dynamics, the control loop for speed preferences recruits neuronal hardware for object representation in a very economic manner in that it avoids at the same time neurons that remain idle and neurons that respond to irrelevant features.

## Discussion

Recently it has been proposed that corticogeniculate feedback modulates the spatial layout of simple-cell RFs by exploiting the thalamic burst-tonic transition of relay modes \[Wörgötter et al., 1998\]. Along a similar line, the main point made by the first part of our modeling is that one should expect a modulatory influence of cortical feedback on the spatiotemporal RF structure of simple cells. More precisely, we observe a shift in the time to the bar-response peak that is opposite for lagged and nonlagged cells; cf. Fig. 2. Assuming (i) an RF layout as usually found for direction-selective simple cells in V1, and (ii) an influence of convergent geniculate lagged and nonlagged inputs on this RF structure, it follows that the observed shifts in response timing affect cortical speed tuning. To the best of our knowledge, nobody has looked for such an effect yet.

Accepting the general conclusion on adaptive cortical speed tuning, the model of the corticogeniculate loop demonstrates what such an effect in the brain may be good for. We have attacked the fundamental sensory task of object segmentation and analyzed a simple implementation of a control loop based on abundant structures of the visual system. The basic idea is to select an important, object-related component of motion. The loop mechanism effectively draws samples of moving features from a retinal region and adapts to the mean of those velocities that are more frequent in one direction than in the opposite, that is, it adapts to an asymmetric peak in the allover velocity density. Such peaks will usually be produced by objects moving over a background; cf. Fig. 4. Features moving at the corresponding velocity acquire an enhanced representation.

The proposed adaptation mechanism could be characterized as pre-attentive, since it requires no “act of will” and no information from higher brain areas where different objects are categorized. Multiple adaptive motion systems could act in parallel for different directions of motion, in different parts of the visual field, and on different spatial scales. From the perspective of efficiency, higher perceptual and attentive mechanisms can be envisaged best to operate on top of a representation level where object-unrelated activity is reduced, as provided by the adaptive motion system. Although at this point it is difficult to pin down the precise mechanisms of contextual effects on neuronal responses in the visual system, it seems clear that modulation related to object segmentation occurs as early as in V1, at least in primates; see Lamme et al. (1998) and references therein.

A critical experimental test of a control loop such as the one analyzed here is to look for changes in spatiotemporal RF structure on a timescale of, say, 100 ms in response to moving, especially large-field, stimuli. It would be interesting to study reverse correlations in the speed or temporal-frequency domain, analogous to work that has uncovered dynamic orientation tuning in the monkey \[Ringach et al., 1997\].

More detailed modeling is required to compare the oscillations and synchronization that arise in the loop model under certain conditions with recent data on persistent oscillations in area 17 that are preferentially evoked by moving stimuli \[Bringuier et al., 1997, Castelo-Branco et al., 1998\]. In the loop model, oscillations may arise from visual stimulation at geniculocortical synapses, showing up as periodic excitatory synaptic potentials in cortical neurons. Because of the slow potentials that modulate the GRC states we would expect such oscillations to be at the lower end of the observed frequency spectrum (below, say, 30 Hz); cf. Fig. 7. Clearly, since such periodic inputs are not restricted to layer 4 \[Bringuier et al., 1997\], intracortical connections have also a role to play, certainly in the propagation of the periodic activity.

As expounded above, the loop model was not designed to fit any particular set of experimental data, and at this stage it does not explain convincingly cortical oscillations. Whatever the details of a control loop, however, a slow modulation of GRC membrane potentials controlled by comparatively fast responses of cortical neurons is likely to produce oscillations under certain conditions. Our argument thus does add a new dimension to the search for the origin of rhythmic and synchronous activity in the low-frequency range.

Great care must be taken when extrapolating from cats to primates. No lagged relay cells have been described in the primate LGN so far. On the other hand, a recent study \[Valois & Cottaris, 1998\] does suggest a set of geniculate inputs to directionally selective simple cells in macaque striate cortex that is essentially analogous to the lagged-nonlagged set envisaged for cat simple cells. If indeed primates employ a similar system at the lowest level of motion analysis, the corticogeniculate loop would implement at this level the classical Gestalt principle of “common fate”, which recognizes common motion as a powerful cue for object segmentation in humans \[Wertheimer, 1958, Julesz, 1971\]. Furthermore, we would obtain a new rationale to the nature of the input to neurons in primate area V2 that extract the shape of objects from coherent motion on a background \[Peterhans & Baumann, 1994, Peterhans, 1997\]. That is to say, V1 detects an object through common motion and V2 then analyzes its shape.

An important side effect of the adaptation mechanism is that it can account for visual stabilization during fixational eye movements. These erratic eye movements cause retinal slips providing motion signals that are directionally unbiased on the timescale of the control loop ($``$ 100 ms). Since unbiased motion does not lead to adaptation to any particular velocity, none of the moving features is highlighted. Now, if the brain relies on the activity of adaptively speed-tuned neurons to infer motion in the outside world, no such motion will be inferred from fixational eye movements. Stabilization of the visual world is thus achieved because successive motion signals cancel out in the control loop.

Interestingly, this stabilization mechanism explains the recently reported ‘jitter after-effect’ \[Murakami & Cavanagh, 1998\]. An observer is first exposed to dynamic random noise for 30 s, and then fixates a larger area of static random noise. The perception is a coherent jitter of the static noise that follows fixational eye movements, specifically, in the region that has not been exposed to the prior random motion. The explanation in terms of the present model relies on the fact that responses of velocity-selective neurons are reduced after stimulation for 30 s \[also called ‘adaptation’, but unrelated to the adaptation of speed preferences proposed here; see Hammond et al. (1988)\]. As can be seen from eqn. (13), for reduced cortical responses $`R_i`$, $`R_i^>`$, $`R_i^<`$ to each of the sweeps induced by eye movements, the amplitudes $`A_i`$ of the corticogeniculate potentials \[cf. eqn. (6)\] become larger222More precisely, eqn. (13) tells us that the amplitudes $`A_i0`$ as the cortical responses grow to their maximum or decrease to zero. Hence, maximal amplitudes $`A_i`$ are produced in between.. The effect is similar to an increased allover strength $`\gamma `$ of cortical feedback. So it may be that each brief period of eye-induced motion that normally averages out in adaptation now gives rise to fluctuations of adaptation of sufficient amplitude to evoke enhanced responses outside the region of reduced responsiveness. Thus the same mechanism that ensures stabilization during normal fixation will now signal jitter motion.

The results presented here offer new explanations for data from diverse research. They also suggest new experimental paradigms to test their implications. In case of confirmation, a re-interpretation of a large amount of data on motion processing might be needed.

## Acknowledgments

The authors thank Esther Peterhans for stimulating discussions concerning her experimental data, and Christof Koch and Mark Hübener for valuable comments on the manuscript. U.H. was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), grant GRK 267.


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# Nonlinear Hall effect in a time-periodic electric field and related phenomena.

## I Directed motion of single charged particle.

In order to demonstrate the physical mechanism of DC current let us consider a motion of a single ion with a mass $`M`$ on metallic surface. A complete description of an interaction between the ion and metallic surface is a quite complicated problem. In framework of a density functional approach it has been discussed in a recent monograph by Liebsch . There are a few solidly established facts we are going to use in our paper. The interaction between the ion and the metallic surface consists mainly of two parts. The first part is an attractive Coulomb force between the ion and an image charge having a potential $`V_{im}(z)`$

$$V_{im}(z)=Q^2/(2zϵ)$$
(1)
where $`z`$ is a distance between the ion and an edge of the metal surface and $`ϵ`$ is a static dielectric constant. We gave here the simplest expression for such force at large $`z`$ neglecting the dynamics of the metal electrons. More rigorous consideration includes an integration over the complex surface polarisability, which modifies the $`z`$\- dependence of $`V_{im}(z)`$. For the sake of simplicity we will use (1) with some dimensionless parameter $`c_1`$

$$V_{im}(z)=c_1Q^2/z$$
(2)
The second part of the interaction is connected with a short-range repulsive exchange potential $`V_{ex}(z)`$ which we choose in exponential form

$$V_{ex}(z)=c_2a_1\mathrm{exp}\{(zz_e)/a_1\}$$
(3)
were $`z_e`$ is an equilibrium distance between the physisorbed ion and metal surface, $`a_1`$ is a radius of exchange forces on surface. The $`c_2`$ is chosen from a equilibrium condition

$$V(z)=V_{im}(z)+V_{ex}(z)$$
(4)
$$V/z|_{z=z_e}=0$$
(5)
$$c_2=c_1Q^2/z_e^2$$
(6)
The motion of the physisorbed ion with a velocity $`\nu `$ leads to electronic excitations in the metal and therefore to a friction force for such motion.

The friction force may be written as

$$𝐟=M(\eta _{}\nu _{}+\eta _{}\nu _{})$$
(7)
Here $`\nu `$ is the particle velocity and $`\eta _{}`$, $`\eta _{}`$ are the friction coefficients for the motion parallel and normal to the surface. If the charge is located outside the electronic density of metal, it can be shown that $`\eta _{}=\eta _{}/2`$ . At large ion surface distances $`z`$ the friction parameter $`\nu _{}`$ depends on $`z`$ as

$$\nu _{}=\frac{Q^2}{M}\frac{\omega _F}{k_F\omega _p^2l}\frac{1}{z^3}$$
(8)
where $`\mathrm{}\omega _F,k_F,l`$ and $`\omega _p`$ are a Fermi energy, a Fermi momentum, a mean free path of electrons and a plasmon frequency respectively.

For rough estimation it is convenient to use more simple formula

$$\nu _{}=\frac{Q^2}{M\sigma _0z^3}$$
(9)
Here $`\sigma _0`$ is a bulk conductivity of a metal. The latter gives a correct order of magnitude for $`\nu _{}`$ and $`\nu _{}`$.

Having in mind all these facts one can readily write the equations of motion of the ion under a joint action of the AC electric field $`E_0\mathrm{cos}\omega t`$ directed along $`z`$ (normally to the surface) and a permanent magnetic field directed parallel to the surface along y-axis, $`H_y=H`$.

$$M\ddot{z}=M\nu (z)\dot{z}+\frac{1}{c}Q\dot{x}H\frac{V}{z}+\xi _z(t)+QE_0(t)$$
(10)
$$M\ddot{x}=Mv_{}(z)\dot{x}+\frac{Q\dot{z}H}{c}+\xi _x(t)$$
(11)
Here $`c`$ is a light velocity. We included also into these equations the random forces $`\xi _{x(z)}(t)`$ which reproduce the thermal fluctuations of the ion velocity. As usual, they have the white noise correlations of the following type

$`<`$ $`\xi _x(t_1)\xi _x(t_2)>=2\nu _{}(z)k_BT\delta (t_1t_2)`$ (12)
$`<`$ $`\xi _z(t_1)\xi _z(t_2)>=2\nu _{}(z)k_BT\delta (t_1t_2)`$ (13)
where $`k_B`$ is a Boltzmann constant and $`T`$ is a temperature of the system.

In spite of the comparative complexity of these equations they can be analyzed analytically in the limit of the very small electric and magnetic fields. At small amplitudes $`E_0`$, $`H`$ of external fields a displacement of the ion $`\delta z=zz_e`$ from its equilibrium position is quite small and the first equation (10) could be chosen in a linear form

$$M\ddot{z}=2M\dot{z}\nu _0k_e\delta z+QE_0(t)$$
(14)
where $`k_e`$ is a force constant of a vibration of ion along the z-axis

$$k_e=\frac{^2V}{z^2}|_{z=z_e}$$
(15)
and

$$\nu _0=2\nu _{}(z_e)$$
(16)
We neglected in (10) the thermal fluctuations ($`T=0`$) and the Lorentz force term. This is correct if we are interested in a linear contribution with respect to magnetic field into the velocity of the transport. However we have to keep this term in (11).

The nonlinearity of Eq.(11) is connected with damping term, which in accepted approximation could be written as

$$M\nu _0(1\gamma \delta z)\dot{x}$$
(17)
Here $`\gamma `$ is a derivative of the damping function $`\nu `$ taken at equilibrium distance $`z_e`$. Then, the Eq.(11) took the following form

$$M\ddot{x}=M\nu _0(1\gamma \delta z)\dot{x}+\frac{QH}{c}\dot{z}$$
(18)
The periodic solution of (13) is

$$\delta z(t)=Re\left\{\frac{E_0(Q/M)e^{i\omega t}}{\omega _e^2\omega ^2+i\nu _02\omega }\right\}$$
(19)
Here $`\omega _e`$ is an eigen-frequency of the physisorbed ion, $`\omega _e^2=k_e/M`$. Then the periodic solution of the second linear equation (17) could be written as the following

$$\begin{array}{cc}\dot{x}=\hfill & _0^{\mathrm{}}d\xi [QH/cM]\mathrm{exp}[\xi \nu _0]\delta \dot{z}(t\xi )\times \hfill \\ & \mathrm{exp}\{\gamma \nu _0_{t\xi }^t\delta z(\tau )𝑑\tau \}\hfill \end{array}$$
(20)
We are interested in the transverse velocity $`\dot{x}`$ averaged over the period of the vibration in the external electric field $`E_0(t)`$. Making use the necessary averaging we have a final expression

$$\overline{v}(\omega )=\frac{Q^3E_0^2H\gamma }{2cM^3}\frac{\omega ^2}{\omega ^2+\nu _0^2}\frac{1}{(\omega _e^2\omega ^2)^2+4\omega ^2\nu _0^2}$$
(21)
The function $`\overline{v}(\omega )`$ has a resonance character and reaches its maximal value at $`\omega =\omega _e`$. Since $`\nu _0M^1`$ and $`\omega _e^2M^1`$ the $`\overline{v}(\omega _e)`$ depends quite weakly on the mass of ion. As a rule, $`\nu _0\omega _e`$ (damping is comparatively small) and

$$\overline{v}(\omega _e)=\frac{Q^3E_0^2H\gamma }{2cM^34\omega _e^2\nu _0^2}$$
(22)
The behavior of $`\overline{v}(\omega )`$ as function of $`\omega `$ is given in Fig.1 for three different values of mass. On the same figure we gave the results of numerical solutions of Eqs.(10,11).

Let us estimate the possible velocities $`\overline{v}`$ at reasonable experimental parameters

$$\begin{array}{cc}M10^{24}g,\hfill & \gamma 10^8cm^1,\hfill \\ \omega _e10^{12}sec^1,\hfill & \nu _00.01\omega _e\hfill \end{array}$$

and $`Q`$ is an electron charge. Then

$`\overline{v}(\omega _e)10^3E_0^2H,`$

where $`E_0`$ and $`H`$ have to be taken in emu system. For example, if $`H10^3Gauss`$ and $`E_0100V/cm`$, $`\overline{v}(\omega _e)1`$ cm/sec.

In order to clarify the physical source of the directed transport of the particle we give a qualitative analysis of the equations(13) and (17). First of all we neglect the dependence of the damping coefficient $`\nu (z)`$ on $`z`$, $`\gamma =0`$. Then, system of equations (13) and (17) became a linear one. The solution of this system can be written as following

$`\delta z`$ $`=`$ $`a_0(\omega )\mathrm{cos}(\omega t+\phi _z(\omega ))`$ (23)
$`x(t)`$ $`=`$ $`a_0(\omega )b_0(\omega )\mathrm{cos}(\omega t+\phi _z(\omega )+\phi _x(\omega ))`$ (24)
where $`a_0(\omega )`$ and $`\phi _z(\omega )`$ are modulus and argument of a complex function

$`{\displaystyle \frac{E_0Q}{M}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega _e^2\omega ^2+i2\nu _0\omega }}`$

and $`b_0(\omega )`$ and $`\phi _x(\omega )`$ are modulus and argument of a complex function $`{\displaystyle \frac{\omega _L}{\nu _0+i\omega }}`$.

A closed trajectory of the particle in the plane $`(\delta z,x)`$ is an ellipse obeyed the following equation (Fig.2)

$$\frac{(x\delta zb_0\mathrm{cos}\phi _x)^2}{a_0^2b_0^2\mathrm{sin}^2\phi _x}+\frac{\delta z^2}{a_0^2}=1$$
(25)
If either $`\omega _L/\nu _0`$ or $`\omega /\nu _0`$ trends to zero the ellipse turns into a line. An angle $`\psi `$ between axes $`z`$ and a largest axis of the ellipse is proportional to $`b_0(\omega )`$. Points $`A`$ and $`A^{}`$ on the Fig.2 are the points of return of the trajectory in the $`x`$-direction. At points $`C`$ and $`C^{}`$ the trajectiry cross the line $`\delta z=0`$, and dashed lines $`AB`$ and $`A^{}B^{}`$ are parallel to this line. In fact, the ellipse (23) is an attractor of the system (13),(17).

Consider a small deformation of the trajectory taking into account the dependence of $`\eta (z)`$ on $`z`$. According to (16)the damping coefficient $`\eta (z)`$ is higher at $`\delta z<0`$ ($`\gamma >0`$) and lower at $`\delta z>0`$. After switching on this dependence the trajectory of the particle between points $`C`$ and $`B`$ will be shifted a little bit to the right side. But this shift will be compensated completely by the shift to the left side on $`AC^{}`$ part of the trajectory. The same is true for $`AC`$ and $`C^{}B^{}`$ parts of the trajectory. Non-zero shift originates from $`AB`$ and $`A^{}B^{}`$ parts. Indeed the velocity on the $`AB`$ part is positive and the trajectory will be shifted to the right side if we diminish the damping coefficient of the particle. The velocity on $`A^{}B^{}`$ is negative and if we increase the damping the trajectory will be shifted also to the right side. All in all it leads to the shift of whole trajectory to the right which is equivalent to the transport of particle in this direction. The qualitative consideration given above does not depends on details of the attractor and holds for any non-linear dynamics of the system at.

Averaging the Eq.(17) over period of time we arrive to the following equality for the shift in $`x`$-direction

$$\overline{\delta x}=\gamma \delta z\dot{x}𝑑t$$
(26)
The integral in (24) is nothing but an area of the ellipse $`S`$ and we have a very simple formula

$$\overline{\delta x}=\gamma S$$
(27)
Eq.(25) could be used directly for the calculation of $`\overline{v}(\omega )`$ and of course it leads to the same result as (20).

Two additional remarks to the main expression (20). If the external AC electric field is a sum of two electric fields with two different amplitudes and frequencies $`\omega _1`$ and $`\omega _2`$ the effect is additive

$`\overline{v}=\overline{v}_1(\omega _1)+\overline{v}_2(\omega _2)`$

where $`v_{1(2)}(\omega _{1(2)})`$ are average velocities (20) with $`E_0=E_{1(2)}`$ and $`\omega =\omega _{1(2)}`$, correspondingly. Moreover, any non-thermal electric noise in system leads to a directed transport of charged particles. Corresponding average velocity could be obtained by integration of (20) over a frequency distribution of the electric noise.

Now, if we have two weakly coupled particles with opposite charges and different masses $`M_1`$ and $`M_2`$ the average velocity of their mass centre can be defined as

$`\overline{v}(\omega )={\displaystyle \frac{M_1\overline{v_1}(\omega )M_2\overline{v_2}(\omega )}{M_1+M_2}}`$

leading to some neutral current in system. More realistic situation with strongly coupled charged particles will be considered in Section 4.

## II The NLH effect on metal surface.

The similar phenomenon takes play inside a metal on the boundary separating two media having different conductivities. In this section we consider the metal-insulator or metal-vacuum boundary as simplest example of such interface. Consider dynamics of electronic gas in surface layer of metal under an influence of external AC electric field $`E_0(t)=E_0\mathrm{cos}\omega t`$ directed perpendicularly to surface of the metal (along $`z`$ axis) and in the magnetic field $`H`$ directed along the surface, axis $`y`$. At this geometry a density of electronic gas, $`\rho (z,t)`$, is a function of normal coordinate $`z`$ and a time $`t`$. There are two velocity components of the electronic gas: the normal component $`v(z,t)`$ and the tangential component $`u(z,t)`$ both of which are functions of only $`z`$ and $`t`$. The electronic gas vibrates perpendicularly to the surface. Due to the nonlinearity of this vibrations a normal velocity $`v(z,t)`$ and density of electron gas $`\rho (z,t)`$ are periodic functions of time with frequency $`\omega `$ having all overtones:

$`v=v_1(z)\mathrm{cos}(\omega t+\phi _1)+v_2(z)\mathrm{cos}(2\omega t+\phi _2)\mathrm{}`$

$`\rho =\rho _0+\rho _1(z)\mathrm{cos}(\omega t+\phi _3)+\rho _2(z)\mathrm{cos}(2\omega t+\phi _4)\mathrm{}`$

The above amplitudes and phases of harmonics as functions of $`z`$ are a subject of calculations. The Lorentz forces induced by magnetic field lead to tangential vibration of electronic gas with amplitude which is proportional to permanent magnetic field. Corresponding tangential velocity $`u(z,t)`$ has the same form as $`v(z,t)`$ with its own amplitudes and phases. The density of tangential current is $`j(z,t)=u(z,t)\rho (z,t)`$. The time averaging of $`j(z,t)`$ over period gives the DC component of the current.

Since the width of a surface layer and all other characteristic lengths greater than atomic distances one can readily use hydrodynamics approach (see ) for description of system. In planar geometry all variables are the functions of only one coordinate $`z`$ and a periodic functions of $`t`$ with frequency $`\omega `$. The main equations look as following

$`\rho \left({\displaystyle \frac{v}{t}}+v{\displaystyle \frac{v}{z}}\right)={\displaystyle \frac{p}{\rho }}{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{z}}+{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi e}{m}}Q(z)`$ (28)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e}{m\mu }}\rho v{\displaystyle \frac{e}{m}}E_0(t)\rho {\displaystyle \frac{He}{mc}}\rho u+\eta {\displaystyle \frac{^2v}{z^2}}`$ (29)
$$\rho \left(\frac{u}{t}+v\frac{u}{z}\right)=\frac{He}{mc}\rho v\frac{e}{m\mu }\rho u+\eta \frac{^2u}{z^2}$$
(30)
$$\frac{\rho }{t}=\frac{}{z}(v\rho )$$
(31)
$$Q(z,t)=2q(z)q(\mathrm{})$$
(32)
Here $`p`$ is a pressure of electronic gas in metal, $`\mu `$ is a mobility of electron in metal, c is the light velocity, m is effective mass of electrons, $`\eta `$ is a viscosity coefficient of an electron fluid. A quantity

$$q(z,t)=e_0^z(\rho (z^{},t)\rho _0)𝑑z^{}$$
(33)
is a surface density of charge (together with positive charge of a lattice) accumulated in a layer between $`z=0`$ and $`z`$. The boundary conditions for this system are quite simple. Both velocities $`v,u`$ are equal to zero at the edge of metal ($`z=0`$).

We are looking for a periodic solution of the equations (22-25). The surface electric current directed along the surface and averaged over the period of time is

$$I_H=_0^{\mathrm{}}e\overline{\rho (z,t)u(z,t)}𝑑z$$
(34)
The bar in Eq.(31) means the time averaging.

The equation (28) can be rewritten via the $`q(z,t)`$ as

$$\frac{dq}{dt}=ev(z,t)\rho (z,t)$$
(35)
From this equation we see immediately that the time averaged normal component of the current

$`\overline{j}_z(z)=0`$

Then, using the Eq.(27) we can get the following formula for time averaged tangential component of the current

$$\omega _\mu \overline{j}_x(z)=e\frac{}{z}[\overline{\rho (z,t)u(z,t)v(z)}]+e\overline{\eta \frac{^2u}{z^2}}$$
(36)
The full surface electric current $`I_H`$ can be obtained by integration over $`z`$ and looks as following

$$I_H=\frac{e\rho _0}{\omega _\mu }\overline{u_{\mathrm{}}v_{\mathrm{}}}\frac{e}{m\omega _\mu }\frac{\eta }{\rho }_0^{\mathrm{}}\overline{\frac{\rho }{z}\frac{u}{z}}𝑑z$$
(37)
where $`v_{\mathrm{}}(t)`$ and $`u_{\mathrm{}}(t)`$ are the normal and tangential velocities for large $`z`$. The constant

$`\kappa =m/{\displaystyle \frac{\eta }{\rho }}`$

has a dimension of a kinematic viscosity $`cm^2/sec`$. At small electric and magnetic fields first non-vanishing contribution to the $`I_H`$ can be obtained if we know $`q(z,t)`$, $`u(z,t)`$ and $`v(z,t)`$ in a linear approximation.

Taking the limit $`z\mathrm{}`$ we come to three equations for asymptotic values $`q_{\mathrm{}}=q(\mathrm{},t)`$, $`u_{\mathrm{}}=u(\mathrm{},t)`$, $`v_{\mathrm{}}=v(\mathrm{},t)`$

$$\frac{d}{dt}q_{\mathrm{}}=\rho _0v_ı$$
(38)
$$\frac{d}{dt}v_{\mathrm{}}=v_ı\omega _\mu +\frac{e}{m}E_0(t)2\beta q_ı(t)$$
(39)
$$\frac{d}{dt}u_{\mathrm{}}=v_ı\omega _Lu_ı\omega _\mu $$
(40)
Here $`\omega _\mu =e/m\mu `$, $`\beta =2\pi e^2/m`$ and $`\omega _L=eH/mc`$ is a Larmor frequency. Periodic solutions of these linear equations give the boundary conditions at $`z\mathrm{}`$. And $`q(0,t)=0`$ by definition. Since one needs only the periodic solution of (26-29) the initial conditions are arbitrary. The system of equations (26-29) has been analyzed both by perturbation theory with respect to external electric field and numerically using standard NAG routines.

The periodic solution of linear equations (35-37) can be written in following form

$`v_{\mathrm{}}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`c_eRe[a(\omega )e^{i\omega t}]`$ (41)
$`q_{\mathrm{}}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`[ϵ_0c_e/\omega _\mu ]\rho _0Re[b(\omega )e^{i\omega t}]`$ (42)
$`\eta _{\mathrm{}}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ_0hc_eRe[c(\omega )e^{i\omega t}]`$ (43)
Here we introduced a dimensionless functions

$`a(\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\omega _\mu \omega ϵ_0}{(\omega _s^2\omega ^2)+i\omega \omega __\mu }}`$ (44)
$`b(\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{iϵ_0\omega _\mu ^2}{(\omega _s^2\omega ^2)+i\omega \omega __\mu }}`$ (45)
$`c(\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`a(\omega ){\displaystyle \frac{\omega _L}{\omega _\mu +i\omega }}\text{,}`$ (46)
where $`ϵ_0`$ and $`h`$ are the dimensionless electric and magnetic fields

$`ϵ_0={\displaystyle \frac{eE_0}{\omega _\mu c_em}},h={\displaystyle \frac{eH}{mc\omega _\mu }},\omega _s^2={\displaystyle \frac{2\pi e^2\rho _0}{m}}`$

Using (26-29) as boundary conditions at an infinite $`z`$ we arrive to the following solutions of the Eqs.(26-29)

$`v(z,t)`$ $`=`$ $`c_eRe[a(\omega )e^{i\omega t}(1e^{\xi k})]`$ (47)
$`q(z,t)`$ $`=`$ $`\rho _0Re[b(\omega )e^{i\omega t}(1e^{\xi k})]`$ (48)
$`u(z,t)`$ $`=`$ $`c_eRe[c(\omega )e^{i\omega t}(1e^{\xi k})]`$ (49)
Here $`\xi `$ is a dimensionless coordinate, $`z=c_e\xi /\omega _\mu `$ , and complex $`k=k_1+ik_2`$ is defined from the equation

$$(k_1+ik_2)^2=[2\omega _s^2\omega ^2+i\omega \omega _\mu ]/\omega _\mu ^2,k_2>0,$$
(50)
We are choosing a root which has $`k_2>0`$. Omitting intermediate calculations we give a final expression for $`I_H`$ in following form

$$I_H=\frac{ec_e^2\rho _0}{2\omega _\mu }hϵ{}_{0}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\gamma _{1}^{}(\omega )+\frac{\kappa \rho _0e}{2}\gamma _2(\omega );$$
(51)
$`\gamma _1`$ and $`\gamma _2`$ are dimensionless functions of a frequency $`\omega `$ of the external field

$`\begin{array}{cc}\gamma _1(\omega )=\hfill & a^{}(\omega )c(\omega )+c^{}(\omega )a(\omega );\hfill \\ \gamma _2(\omega )=\hfill & [k^2k^{}c^{}(\omega )b(\omega )+h.c.][k+k^{}]^1\hfill \end{array}`$

Both of them have resonance character and reach their peaks at $`\omega =\omega _s`$ as it shown on Fig.3. Maximal value of them are $`\gamma _1(\omega _s)=2\omega _\mu ^2/\omega _s^2`$ and $`\gamma _2(\omega _s)=1`$. For metals at low temperature as a rule $`\omega _\mu ^2/\omega _s^21`$. At very high frequency $`\omega \omega _s`$ both $`\gamma _1(\omega )`$ and $`\gamma _2(\omega )`$ decrease as $`1/\omega ^4`$. At low frequency $`\omega \omega _\mu `$ they behave as $`\omega ^2`$: $`\gamma _1(\omega )\omega _\mu ^2\omega ^2/\omega _s^4`$ and $`\gamma _2(\omega )=\omega ^2/\omega _s^2`$.

Thus, at low temperature main contribution to the surface current $`I_H`$ comes from the second term of (38), depending on the viscosity of electronic gas. According to  the viscosity of electronic Fermi liquid in metal at low temperature could be estimated as

$$\eta m\rho _0c_ed(ϵ_F/T)^2$$
(52)
where $`d`$ is a lattice constant and $`ϵ_F`$ is a Fermi energy of a metal.

Thus, at low temperature the surface current $`I_H`$ can be expressed as

$`I_H={\displaystyle \frac{\omega ^2e\rho _0dc_e}{4\omega _s^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_F}{k_BT}}\right)^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu E}{c_e}}\right)^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu M}{c}}\right)`$

It is easy to see that the temperature dependence of the effect is determined by the factor $`\sigma ^3(T)/T^2`$ ($`\sigma (T)`$ is a conductivity of the metal).

To demonstrate the value of the effect let us take material parameters of pure copper at low temperature, say, T=30 K:

$`d=10^8cm,c_e=10^8{\displaystyle \frac{cm}{sec}},\rho _0=10^{22}cm^3.`$

The conductivity behave as $`T^5`$:

$`\sigma (T)=\sigma _R(T_R/T)^5`$

where $`\sigma _R=10^6om^1`$ is a room temperature conductivity and $`T_R=300K`$.

Finally, for the pure cooper at $`T=300K`$ we have

$`I_H=0.1\nu ^2E_0^2H`$

where $`\nu `$ is expressed in MHz, $`E_0`$ in a V/cm, $`H`$ in a $`Tesla`$, $`I_H`$ is in a $`\mu A/cm`$. At $`E_0=10V/cm`$, $`H=0.01T`$, $`\nu =10MHz`$ one has $`I_H=1.0\mu A/cm`$.

## III NLH current in an injection layer of a semiconductor.

In the previous Section we have considered the dynamics of electron gas inside a metal on the boundary metal-semiconductor. If a work function for transition of electrons from metal side to the semiconductor is not too high electrons of the metal can be injected into the semiconductor creating an injection layer of electrons inside of the semiconductor. The injection layer can give a contribution to the NLH current on the interface metal-semiconductor. An estimation of the NLH current in this injection layer is the subject of present section. First of all, let us consider the equilibrium electron density in the semiconductor side. Free energy of electron gas per unit area of the surface has the following form \[6, Liebsch\]

$`F={\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}f(\rho ,T)𝑑z+2\pi e^2{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\rho (z)𝑑z{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}z\rho (z)𝑑z`$ (53)
$`e^2\pi {\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\rho (z)|zz^{}|\rho (z^{})𝑑z𝑑z^{}+\psi _0{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\rho (z)𝑑z`$ (54)
where $`f=(\rho (z),T)`$ is a density of the free energy of injected electron gas, which is a function of electron density $`\rho (z)`$and temperature $`T`$. At small density $`\rho (z)`$the $`f=(\rho ,T)`$ is a free energy of ideal classical gas.

$`f(\rho ,T)=T\rho \mathrm{ln}\rho /\rho _T`$

We use the units where Boltzmann constant $`k_B=1`$. $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$ is.a work function for transfer electron from metal to the semiconductor. Minimization of $`F`$ with respect to $`\rho (z)`$ leads to the well known equation for equilibrium density $`\rho _e(z)`$

$`{\displaystyle \frac{f}{\rho }}`$ $`+2\pi e^2z{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\rho _e(z)𝑑ze^22\pi {\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\rho _e(z^{})|zz^{}|𝑑z^{}`$ (55)
$`+2\pi e^2{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}z\rho _e(z)𝑑z+\mathrm{\Psi }_0=0`$ (56)
For Boltzmann electron gas the solution of (45) looks as following

$$\rho _e(z)=\frac{z_dq_{\mathrm{}}^2}{(zz_dq_{\mathrm{}}+1)^2}$$
(58)
Here $`q_{\mathrm{}}=_0^{\mathrm{}}\rho (z)𝑑z`$and

$`z_d={\displaystyle \frac{2\pi e^2}{T}},`$

is full injected charge per unit of area of surface. An equality of chemical potential of the metal and the semiconductor on the surface of the metal

$$\frac{f}{\rho }|_{\rho =\rho _e(0)}=\mathrm{\Psi }_0$$
(59)
gives

$$\rho _e(0)=\rho _Te^{\mathrm{\Psi }/T}$$
(60)
and

$$q_{\mathrm{}}=(\rho _T/z_d)^{1/2}e^{\mathrm{\Psi }/2T}$$
(61)
In fact, the equations (45-49) summarise briefly the simplest theory of Schottky barrier on the metal-semiconductor interface . Under action of time-periodic external electric field $`E_0\mathrm{sin}\omega t`$ the non-linear oscillations of the density $`\rho (z,t)`$ takes place. A system of equations describing these oscillations looks very much like that of the metal-vacuum interface equations (26-29), but the background positive charge $`\rho _0`$ in Eq.(29) has to be taken zero.

Another important difference between the metal-insulator and metal-semiconductor cases is connected with boundary conditions for velocities $`v(z,t)`$ and $`u(z,t)`$ at $`z=0`$. There are two limit cases. In the first one, the exchange of charges over the surface is quite slow which means that total charge in the semiconductor is conserving under action of the AC electric field and $`v(0,t)=0`$, $`u(0,t)=0`$ at the boundary. If we neglect the viscosity a total NLH current vanishes.

Let us outline briefly the solution of the hydrodynamics equations (26-29) in this case. At small electric $`E_0`$ and magnetic $`H`$ fields and small viscosity of electron liquid the first equation (26) can be rewritten as

$$\rho \omega _\mu =c_e^2\frac{\rho }{z}+\rho 4\pi (\rho (z)\rho _{\mathrm{}})+eE(t)\rho $$
(62)
where

$$\rho (z,t)=_0^{\mathrm{}}\rho (z)𝑑z$$
(63)
and

$$c_e^2=\rho \frac{^2f}{\rho ^2}$$
(64)
For Boltzmann gas $`c_e^2=\sqrt{T/m}`$ . The equation of continuity can be rewritten as

$$\frac{q}{t}=v\rho $$
(65)
In the equation for $`u(z,t)`$ we have to keep small terms connected with the magnetic field (Lorentz force) and viscosity. Then, this equation can be rewritten in the following form

$$\frac{u\rho }{t}+\frac{}{z}vu\rho =\omega _Lv\rho \omega \mu u\rho +\frac{\eta }{m}\frac{^2u}{z^2}$$
(66)
Having in mind that we are interested in the full surface current averaged over period of oscillation of external electric field

$$I_H=e_0^{\mathrm{}}\overline{\rho u}𝑑z$$
(67)
we arrive to the expression

$$I_H=\frac{e}{\omega _\mu }_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\eta }{m}\frac{^2u}{z^2}𝑑z$$
(68)
Here again the bar means the averaging over period of oscillation. We took into account also that

$$\overline{j_z}=\overline{v\rho }=0$$
(69)
due to the second equation.

As a rule, the viscosity of electronic gas $`\eta `$ depends on the density of electron and, thus, depend on $`z`$ . It is more convenient to rewrite (56) as

$$I_H=\frac{e}{\omega _\mu m}_0^{\mathrm{}}(\frac{\eta }{\rho })\frac{\rho }{z}\frac{u}{z}𝑑z$$
(70)
Further we shall show that

$`{\displaystyle \frac{u}{z}}|_{z=0}=0`$

At small viscosity and small $`\omega /\omega _\mu `$ (low frequency of external field)

$`u={\displaystyle \frac{\omega _L}{\omega _\mu }}v`$

and we can express the $`I_H`$ via normal velocity $`v(z,t)`$ and density $`\rho (z,t)`$ found from equation (50)

$$I_H=\frac{e\omega _L}{m\omega _{\mu }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}_0^{\mathrm{}}(\frac{\eta }{\rho })\frac{\rho }{z}\frac{u}{z}𝑑z$$
(71)
The viscosity of electron gas is unknown function of density of the gas. Father, for estimation, we assume that is $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m}}{\displaystyle \frac{\eta }{\rho }}`$ is approximately equal to kinematic viscosity of electronic gas,

$`\kappa ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{m}}{\displaystyle \frac{\eta }{\rho }},`$

taken at equilibrium surface density of electron gas, $`\rho _{eq}(0).`$Thus (60) turns into the following expression

$$I_H=\frac{e\omega _L}{\omega _{\mu }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}\kappa _0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑z\frac{\rho }{z}\frac{v}{z}$$
(72)
which we will use for estimation of nonlinear Hall surface current.

The solution of the eqs. (50) will be performed by theory of perturbation with respect to a small amplitude of electric field $`E_0`$ . After introduction of dimensionless time $`\tau =\omega t`$ , coordinate $`z={\displaystyle \frac{c_e\xi }{\sqrt{\omega \omega _\mu }}}`$, electric field $`ϵ_0={\displaystyle \frac{eE_0}{mc_e\sqrt{\omega \omega _\mu }}}`$ and new function $`\lambda (z,t)`$.

$$q_{(z,t)}=q_{\mathrm{}}(1\alpha \lambda (z,t))$$
(73)
the (50) turns into the following equation

$$\frac{\lambda }{\tau }=\frac{^2\lambda }{\xi ^2}+2\eta \frac{\lambda }{\xi }+ϵ\frac{\lambda }{\xi }\mathrm{cos}\tau $$
(74)
which has to be solved with boundary conditions

$`\lambda (\xi )0\text{at}\xi \mathrm{}`$

$`\lambda (0)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\alpha }}`$

Here we use the following notation

$`\alpha ={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{\omega \omega _\mu }c_em_0}{2\pi q_{\mathrm{}}e^2}},\beta ={\displaystyle \frac{c_e}{\sqrt{\omega \omega _\mu }}}`$

$`v=\beta \omega ({\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{\tau }})/({\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{\xi }})`$

Note that we are looking for the periodic solution of (63). If we make a substitution

$$\lambda =(\frac{\phi }{\xi })/\phi $$
(75)
the nonlinear eq. (63) turns into linear one

$$\frac{\phi }{\tau }=\frac{^2\phi }{\xi ^2}+ϵ\mathrm{cos}\tau \frac{\phi }{\xi }$$
(76)
with the boundary conditions

$`\phi (\xi )\mathrm{}\text{at}\xi \mathrm{}`$

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\phi }{\xi }}|_{\xi =0}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\alpha }}\phi (0)`$

The perturbative analysis of linear Eq. (65) is rather trivial and we give only the final result

$$\lambda (\xi ,t)=\lambda _0(\xi )+ϵ\lambda _1(\xi ,t)$$
(77)
$$\lambda _0=\frac{1}{\xi +\alpha }$$
(78)
$$\lambda _1=ϵ\left[\frac{1}{\xi +\alpha }\frac{a(\xi )}{\xi }\frac{1}{(\xi +\alpha )^2}a(\xi )\right]e^{i\tau }$$
(79)
where $`a(\xi )`$ has the form

$$a(\xi )=i\left[\frac{1}{1+k\alpha }e^{k\xi }1\right],k=\frac{i+1}{\sqrt{2}}$$
(80)
Omitting intermediate calculations we give the expression for $`I_H`$ in the following form

$$I_H=e\frac{b\omega _L}{\omega _{\mu }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}\frac{q_{\mathrm{}}\alpha }{\beta }ϵ^2_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{1}{(\xi +\alpha )^4}v(\xi )𝑑\xi $$
(81)
where

$`v(\xi )=\overline{\left({\displaystyle \frac{\eta _1}{\tau }}{\displaystyle \frac{\eta _1}{\xi }}\right)}/\left({\displaystyle \frac{\eta _0}{\xi }}\right)^2`$

since is proportional to $`\sqrt{\omega }`$ ,the function $`R(\alpha )`$ ,

$$R(\alpha )=_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{1}{(\xi +\alpha )^4}v(\xi )𝑑\xi $$
(82)
is actually a function of frequency of external electric field $`\omega `$Ṅumerical calculation shows that $`R(0)=0.21`$. Collecting all multipliers we get the following expression for the $`I_H`$

$$I_H=\frac{3H}{2\pi c}R(0)\omega \kappa \left(\frac{\mu E_0}{c_e}\right)^2$$
(83)
As an example let us choose reasonable parameters

$`\rho _{\mathrm{}}=10^{12}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{cm^3}},\kappa =10^3{\displaystyle \frac{cm^2}{sec}},`$

$`\mu =10^5{\displaystyle \frac{cm^2}{V\mathrm{sec}}},v=10^7{\displaystyle \frac{cm}{sec}}.`$

Then, $`I_H`$ can be written as

$`I_H=10^5H\omega E_0^2`$

where $`I_H`$ is expressed in a $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mu A}{cm}}`$ , $`H`$ in a $`Oe`$, $`E_0`$ in a $`V/cm`$ and $`\omega `$ in a $`MHz`$.

## IV Magnetophoresis of neutral particles on the surface.

Consider now the neutral particle (atom, molecule or any nano-size particle) located on the metal surface under joint action of normal AC-electric and tangent permanent magnetic fields. As it has been shown in Section 1 the driving force which causes the directed transport of particle on the surface depends on a mass, charge and details of an interaction between particles and the surface of metal. If negative and positive charges coupled in a neutral pair as it takes place in atoms and molecules then the driving forces acting on positive and negative charges are directed on opposite sides, but their values, generally speaking, can be different. Thus, the resulting force acting on the particle is not necessary zero leading to the directed transport of the particles. As it is well-known the Lorentz forces acting on the neutral particle in a magnetic field $`H`$ can be written as

$$𝐅_l=\frac{1}{c}\left[\frac{𝐃}{t}\times 𝐇\right]$$
(84)
where $`𝐃`$ is a dipole moment of the system of the charged particles. On the other hand, the dipole moment $`𝐃`$ of the neutral particle in an external electric field $`𝐄_0\mathrm{cos}(\omega t)`$ is an algebraic sum of a permanent dipole moment of the particle $`𝐃_0`$ and the dipole moment $`𝐃_1(t)`$ induced by an external time-periodic electric field $`𝐄_0\mathrm{cos}(\omega t)`$. Thus, we have

$$𝐃(t)=𝐃_0+\alpha (\omega )𝐄_0\mathrm{cos}(\omega t)$$
(85)
where $`\alpha (\omega )`$ is a frequency depending polarisibility of the particle. As a rule, for neutral particle absorbed on a metal surface vector $`𝐃_0`$ is directed normally to the surface. The potential of interaction between the dipole particle and metallic surface $`V(z)`$, consists of two terms .

The Coulomb attraction potential

$$V_{id}(z)=\frac{𝐃^2}{4z^3ϵ}$$
(86)
and a repulsive exchange potential $`V_{ed}(z)`$, which we again (see Section 1) choose in an exponential form

$$V_{ed}(z)=c_da_d\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{zz_d}{a_d}\right)$$
(87)
Here $`a_d`$ is a radius of exchange forces on the metallic surface and $`z_d`$ is an equilibrium distance between the particle and the surface, $`c_d`$ is determined from an equilibrium condition

$$V(z)=V_{id}(z)+V_{ed}(z),\frac{V}{z}|_{z=z_d}=0$$
(88)
As in the case of ion-metal system the friction coefficient, $`\nu `$, for the dipole particle located on a metal surface depends on the distance $`z`$ (see ). At large distances $`z`$, the $`\nu (z)`$ is proportional to $`1/z^3`$.

Similar to Section 1 we choose this dependence in a form

$$\nu (z)=\nu _0[1\gamma _d(zz_d)]$$
(89)
where $`\nu _0=\nu (z_d)`$ and $`\gamma _d={\displaystyle \frac{\nu (z)}{z}}|_{z=z_d}`$.

At small deviation from the equilibrium position of the particle the equations of motion for its gravity center can be written as following

$`M\ddot{z}`$ $`=`$ $`M\nu (z)\dot{z}\omega _d^2M(zz_d)Q_dE_0(t)`$ (90)
$`M\ddot{x}`$ $`=`$ $`M\nu (z)\dot{x}+{\displaystyle \frac{H}{c}}{\displaystyle \frac{D}{t}}`$ (91)
Here $`\omega _d`$ is an eigenfrequency of particle vibration on the surface and

$`Q_d={\displaystyle \frac{3D_0\alpha (\omega )}{z_d^4}}`$

Using (73) we get

$$\frac{D}{t}=\omega \alpha (\omega )E_0\mathrm{sin}(\omega t)$$
(92)
The system of equations (78) is complete analog of that in the Section 1. Omitting the details of the calculation we give the expression for tangent velocity $`\frac{dx}{dt}`$ averaged over a period of oscillation of the external effective electric field

$$\overline{\dot{x}}=v(\omega )=\frac{\gamma }{4}\left[g_0(\omega )g_1^{}(\omega )+g_1(\omega )g_0^{}(\omega )\right]$$
(93)
where complex functions $`g_0(\omega )`$ and $`g_1(\omega )`$ have form

$`g_0(\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{Q_dE_0}{M(\omega _d^2\omega ^2+i\nu _0\omega )}}`$ (94)
$`g_1(\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{E_0\alpha (\omega )Hi\omega }{Mc(i\omega +\nu _0)}}`$ (95)
Final expression of the $`v(\omega )`$ has a form

$$v(\omega )=\gamma \frac{3D_0}{z_d^4M^2c}\frac{\alpha ^2(\omega )E_0^2H\omega ^2}{\omega ^2+\nu _0^2}\frac{\omega _d^2\nu _0^2\omega ^2}{\left(\omega _d^2\omega ^2\right)^2+\nu _0^2\omega ^2}$$
(96)
At small $`\omega `$ the velocity $`v(\omega )`$ is decreasing as $`\omega ^2`$ in complete analogy with corresponding velocity of charged particle. However, in difference with the Section 1 $`v(\omega )`$ changes its sign at $`\omega =\sqrt{\omega _d^2+\nu _0^2}`$. The general form of $`v(\omega )`$ as a function of frequency is presented on Fig.4.

If the dipole moment of the particle $`D_0`$ is proportional to its volume (as it takes place for ferroelectric medium) then $`v(\omega )`$ does not change much with the increase of the radius of the particle and its mass.

If the external electric field $`E_0(t)`$ is a sum of two harmonics with different frequencies $`\omega _1`$ and $`\omega _2`$ the resulting velocity is additive,

$$v(\omega )=v_1(\omega _1)+v_1(\omega _2)$$
(97)
For atomic size particles (atom or molecule) the maximal velocity could be estimated as

$$v=10^{12}E_0^2H$$
(98)
where $`v`$ is given in cm/sec, $`E_0`$ in V/cm and $`H`$ in Oe.

## V NLH effect phenomenology.

In previous Sections we have shown that the joint action of the permanent magnetic and AC-electric fields leads to the direct transport of particles located nearly surface. An important role in consideration plays gradient of the damping constant the system metal-particle. Generalizing all examples of the previous Section we can assume that the NHL effect takes place in a bulk of the material if there exists a non-zero gradient of conductivity tensor $`j_i`$ could be chosen as

$$j_i=\lambda (\omega )\frac{\sigma _{ij}}{z_k}\dot{E}_k\dot{E}_lϵ_{jlm}H_m$$
(99)
where $`\dot{E}_k`$ is a time derivative of an external electric field and $`H`$ is magnetic field. In a case of isotropic medium $`\sigma _{ij}=\delta _{ij}\sigma `$ the density of current is

$$𝐣=\lambda (\sigma \dot{𝐄})[\dot{𝐄}\times 𝐇]$$
(100)
Here $`\lambda `$ is a phenomenological coefficient depending on frequency and material parameters.

To demonstrate the physical consequences of (88) consider the cylindrical system shown on Fig.5. The time periodic voltage is applied between inner and external surface of the cylindrical sample. The permanent magnetic fields $`H`$ is directed along main axes of the cylinder. We assume also that the conductivity of the metal decreases along the radius of the sample, $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma }{r}}<0`$.

In the chosen cylindrical geometry there exist only angular component of the current density $`j_\phi (r)`$ which according to (88) can be expressed as

$$j_\phi (r)=\lambda (\omega )\frac{\sigma }{r}\dot{𝐄}^2𝐇$$
(101)
Now, let us assume also, that the conductivity $`\sigma `$ , $`\omega `$ and thickness of the sample are chosen such a way that the electric field $`E(t)`$ penetrates over the sample.Then the additional magnetic field $`H_{ad}(r)`$ induced by this current can be written as

$$H_i(r)=\frac{4\pi }{c}_{r_1}^r\overline{j_\phi }(r)𝑑r=\frac{4\pi }{c}(rr_1)\overline{j_\phi }$$
(102)
where $`r_1`$ is an radius of the sample. There exist also diamagnetic contribution to the induced magnetic field which is proportional to diamagnetic susceptibility, $`\chi `$ ,of the material

$$H_d=\chi H$$
(103)
Summing up both terms we come to the conclusion that the full induced magnetic field is positive if

$$\lambda \frac{\sigma }{r}\overline{\dot{𝐄}^2}\frac{4\pi }{c}l_d>|\chi |$$
(104)
Actually, the condition (91) is a condition of stability of the system to the generation of magnetic field in the sample under action of time periodic electric field $`E(t)`$.The details of phenomenon will be considered in the future.

The main obstacle for observation of the NLH effect in AC electric field seems to be connected with an absorption of ultrahigh frequency electromagnetic field into material. The time-periodic components of Hall current which is linear with respect to external electric field is greater than a permanent component of the NLH current and may lead to heating up of the sample. On the other hand, at low (or ultralow) temperature the absorption and warming up could be made small enough for such observation.

Captions to Figures

Fig. 1. Frequency dependence of the velocity (20) of a single charged particle at $`\nu _0=0.1\omega _e`$ for three different masses $`m=M/M_0=0.25`$, $`M/M_0=1.0`$ and $`M/M_0=4.0`$.

Fig. 2. An attractor of the system (13-17). The A and A’ are points of return in x direction. Arrows on the trajectory show the direction of the particle rotation, $`\psi `$ is an angle of inclination of the ellipse.

Fig. 3. Frequency dependence of $`\gamma _1(\omega )`$ and $`\gamma _2(\omega )`$ at $`\omega _\mu =0.1\omega _s`$.

Fig. 4. Frequency dependence of the velocity (83) of neutral particle at $`\nu _0=0.1\omega _d`$.

Fig. 5. The principle set up for observation of NHL effect. Electric field $`E_0(t)`$ is directed along the radius of the cylinder sample.