Z. Ye et al., PHONON-INDUCED DEPHASING OF THE INTERNAL VIBRATIONAL-MODE OF A DIATOMIC ADSORBED MOLECULE, Physical review. B, Condensed matter, 47(20), 1993, pp. 13674-13681
The line shape of an internal vibrational mode of an adsorbed molecule
can be determined in part by dephasing processes due to anharmonic in
teractions with lower-frequency vibrational modes of the molecule and
substrate. Perturbative and exact treatments of the bilinear coupling
between the molecule and the surface atoms are compared, for the case
in which the lower-frequency molecular vibration is degenerate with th
e phonon continuum. Line broadening and frequency shifts are calculate
d explicitly in a model in which the admolecule is constrained to move
perpendicularly to the surface. It is found that the magnitude and si
gn of the temperature-dependent frequency shift depend sensitively on
the shape of the adsorption potential, and that the exact treatment of
the bilinear interaction leads to substantial improvements, compared
to the purely perturbative treatment. Limitations on the applicability
of the exchange model for dephasing are discussed.