Nonlinear damping and dephasing in nanomechanical systems

We present a microscopic theory of nonlinear damping and dephasing of low-frequency eigenmodes in nano- and micro-mechanical systems. The mechanism of the both effects is scattering of thermally excited vibrational modes off the considered eigenmode. The scattering is accompanied by energy transfer of 2hbarω₀ for nonlinear damping and is quasieleastic for dephasing. We develop a formalism that allows studying both spatially uniform systems and systems with a strong nonuniformity, which is smooth on the typical wavelength of thermal modes but not their mean free path. The formalism accounts for the decay of thermal modes, which plays a major role in the nonlinear damping and dephasing. We identify the nonlinear analogs of the Landau-Rumer, thermoelastic, and Akhiezer mechanisms and find the dependence of the relaxation parameters on the temperature and the geometry of a system.