takes
(62)
where
is the mass,
the spring force constant, and
a constant
(with the dimensions of angular frequency) that parameterizes the strength of the
damping. The time evolution equation of the system thus becomes [cf., Equation (2)]
(63)
where
is the undamped oscillation frequency [cf., Equation (6)]. We
shall refer to the preceding equation as the damped harmonic oscillator equation.
Let us search for a solution to Equation (63) of the form
(64)
where
,
,
, and are all constants. By analogy with the
discussion in Section 2.1, we can interpret the preceding solution as a periodic
oscillation, of fixed angular frequency
decays exponentially in time as
, whose amplitude
The only way that the preceding equation can be satisfied at all times is if the
(constant) coefficients of
separately equate to zero, so that
and
(68)
(69)
and
(71)
(72)
assuming that
(because
cannot be negative). We conclude
that the effect of a relatively small amount of damping, parameterized by the damping
constant , on a system that exhibits simple harmonic oscillation about a stable
equilibrium state is to reduce the angular frequency of the oscillation from its
undamped value
to
, and
large that
(which we shall assume not to be the case) then the system does
not oscillate at all, and any motion simply decays away exponentially in time. (See
Exercise 7.)
giving
(75)
(76)
is a solution then so is
, where
is an arbitrary constant. It
and
and
is
, we obtain
(77)
where
(79)
is the total energy of the system: that is, the sum of the kinetic and potential energies.
Because the right-hand side of (78) cannot be positive, and is only zero when the
system is stationary, the total energy is not a conserved quantity, but instead decays
monotonically in time due to the action of the damping. The net rate at which the
force (62) does work on the mass is
(80)
The spring force (i.e., the first term on the right-hand side) does negative work on the
mass (i.e., it reduces the system kinetic energy) when and are of the same sign,
and does positive work when they are of the opposite sign. It can be demonstrated
that, on average, the spring force does no net work on the mass during an oscillation
cycle. The damping force, on the other hand, (i.e., the second term on the right-hand
side) always does negative work on the mass, and, therefore, always acts to reduce the
system kinetic energy.