Electromagnetic scattering by arbitrary-shaped magnetic particles and multipole decomposition: Analytical and numerical approaches

We develop a theoretical approach that makes it possible to analyze the role of multipole contributions in the scattering spectra of arbitrarily shaped magnetic particles with the relative permittivity and permeability given in a general tensor-valued form. The method for calculating the exact multipole moments with the inclusion of induced electric polarization and magnetization is suggested and explicitly applied for dipole and quadrupole terms. The final expressions for the dipole and quadrupole moments are obtained in such a form that they can be easily implemented in numerical solvers. Successful verification of the analytical expressions for multipole moments and the multipole decomposition of the scattered field and scattering cross section is provided by comparing the results obtained for differently shaped magnetic particles using the analytical Mie theory, numerical discrete dipole approximation, and comsol multiphysics software. As a particular example, the manifestation of the Faraday effect for fields scattered by a ferrite sphere is discussed in the framework of the multipole decomposition method with the derived magnetization terms. Accounting for the magnetic properties of particles in the multipole analysis of the electromagnetic scattering significantly expands the method's capabilities for studying and modeling metamaterial properties in the spectral ranges where natural materials can have a relative permeability different from unity.