Landauer-Buettiker approach to current-induced forces in nanoelectromechanical systems

We study current-induced forces in nanoelectromechanical systems with coupling between electronic and mechanical degrees of freedom. We focus on the regime where the mechanical motion is slow and Coulomb blockade effects can be neglected. We derive the current-induced forces both in and out of equilibrium and give the conditions under which these forces can be expressed solely in terms of the S-matrix. We pay particular attention to situations with more than one mechanical degree of freedom which are characterized by several qualitatively new features. We apply our general results to some simple examples.