Check of theory of Brownian motion of a particle through a potential barrier in viscous medium during experimental study of dislocation acoustic relaxation in normal and superconducting niobium

The Kramers theory (1940) describing the thermally activated escape of a particle from a potential well in viscous medium is used to interpret the acoustic absorption peak revealed by Kramer and Bauer (1967) in niobium at liquid helium temperatures. It is shown that the experimentally recorded properties of the peak comply with the model of resonance interaction between sound vibrations and the chains of dislocation kinks (particle-like excitation along the dislocation lines). The sound vibrations make the kinks drift diffusively in the second-order Peierls potential relief and experience viscous friction due to the conduction electrons. It turns out that at quite low temperatures niobium develops certain conditions for the kinks, which permit observation of the anomaly predicted by Kramers, i.e. an increase in the particle mobility when the dynamic friction coefficient grows. This fact has been helpful in interpreting one of the most interesting properties of the Kramer-Bauer peak which so far was not quite clear - the displacement of the peak towards low temperatures as niobium experienced the superconducting to normal state transition induced by the magnetic fields. The possibilities of observing quantum diffusion of kinks in acoustic experiments are also discussed briefly