Low-temperature thermal transport in nanowires

We propose a theory of low temperature thermal transport in nanowires in a regime in which competition between a phonon and flexural modes governs the relaxation processes. Starting with the standard kinetic equations for two different types of quasiparticles, we derive a general expression for the coefficient of thermal conductivity. The underlying physics of thermal conductance is completely determined by the corresponding relaxation times, which can be calculated directly for any dispersion of quasiparticles, depending on the size of a system. We show that, if the considered relaxation mechanism is dominant, then at small wire diameters the temperature dependence of thermal conductivity experiences a crossover from T 1/2 to T 3 -dependence. Quantitative analysis shows reasonable agreement with resent experimental results.