• Accepted Paper

Nonlocal optical response and surface susceptibilities: A systematic derivation via spatial moment expansion

F. Zolla

Phys. Rev. B - Accepted 30 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/xp4h-j5nv

Abstract

We present a systematic theory connecting the nonlocal response kernel of a homogeneous medium to its effective surface susceptibilities for an arbitrary curved interface. Starting from the most general tensorial nonlocal constitutive relation and combining a spatial moment expansion with a distributional thin-layer limit, we show that the full complexity of the interfacial response condenses, at leading order, into two surface susceptibilities χ∥s and χ⊥s, given by the first normal moment of the bulk kernel over the exterior half-space. They carry the dimension of a length, coincide for a scalar kernel, and generically differ for a tensorial one, the anisotropy of the surface response being inherited from the longitudinal/transverse contrast of the bulk kernel. These quantities provide a constructive generalization of the Feibelman d-parameters to interfaces of arbitrary curvature; the next moment generates a dipole-layer term ∂nδ∂Ω, and it is through the anisotropy of that layer that curvature first reaches the leading surface term, in a combination whose integral over any closed surface vanishes, as the parity of the layer mass requires; for a scalar kernel curvature is deferred one order further, the leading term then seeing the geometry only through the quadratic invariant 3H2−4K. Generalized Maxwell boundary conditions are established and compared with the classical Fresnel results, and the formalism is illustrated on the nonlocal two-dimensional Mie scattering of a dielectric cylinder.

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