PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

While the well-established Prandtl-Tomlinson (PT) model of atomic friction predicts that the friction force decreases with temperature and grows with velocity, several recent experiments reported that a nonmonotonic temperature dependence and a decreasing velocity dependence may also occur. We propose a minimal extension of the PT model, incorporating the possibility of thermally activated contact strengthening and providing one common framework to quantitatively explain all those "anomalous'' experimental findings, as well as the previously known "normal'' (PT-like) behavior.