A cooperative model of stress relaxation in solids

Abstract

Abstract The process of stress relaxation in solids is discussed in terms of a two‐level system where stimulated emission of phonons may occur. There is no a priori information on field equations or interaction Hamiltonian but the physically reasonable statistical assumption about the phonon distribution, that they are bosons, is enough in order to describe the macroscopic behaviour qualitatively. With certain approximations, the equation for the stress rate may be solved with analytical methods. Comparison with experiments reveals that this proposed mechanism for stress relaxation might be correct.