Dissipation in solids: thermal oscillations of atoms

Dissipation in solids describes conversion of kinetic energy to thermal energy. Heat capacity of a solid relates to the kinetic energy of the oscillations of its atoms with the assumption that they are in thermal equilibrium. Previous studies investigated criteria related to thermal relaxation, the process by which thermal equilibrium is established. They examined conditions for irreversible distribution of energy among the modes of a nonlinear periodic structure that represents atoms in a solid. These studies all point to the chaotic behavior of a freely vibrating nonlinear lattice as the kernel of the problem in addressing thermal relaxation. This paper extends the results of previous studies on thermalization to modeling of dissipation as energy absorption that takes place during forced vibration of particles in a nonlinear lattice. Results show that dissipation and chaotic behavior of the particles develop simultaneously. Such behavior develops when the forcing frequency falls within a resonance band. The results also support the argument that for a real solid, both in terms of size and complexity, resonance bands overlap significantly broadening the frequency range within which dissipation takes place.