Size Dependence of the Static Polarizabilities and Absorption Spectra of Ag clusters

We present results for the structures, static polarizabilities, and absorption spectra for ground state and low-energy isomers of Ag$_n$ ($n\le 10$) clusters. The calculations for ground state properties are performed using local density approximation and pseudopotentials. For excited state properties, we use a real-space higher-order finite difference pseudopotential method within the time dependent local density approximation (TDLDA). The structures and spectra are in very good agreement with previous calculations and available experimental data. The absorption spectra show very sharp features (plasmon peaks) around 3 to 5 eV for clusters with even number of atoms as well as for Ag$_7$. In most cases, there are significant differences between the absorption spectra of the ground state structures and higher lying isomers, which could be used to identify the relevant structure in the experiments.