  We develop a computational method for evaluating the damping of vibrational
modes in mono-atomic metallic chains suspended between bulk crystals under
external strain. The damping is due to the coupling between the chain and
contact modes and the phonons in the bulk substrates. The geometry of the atoms
forming the contact is taken into account. The dynamical matrix is computed
with density functional theory in the atomic chain and the contacts using
finite atomic displacements, while an empirical method is employed for the bulk
substrate. As a specific example, we present results for the experimentally
realized case of gold chains in two different crystallographic directions. The
range of the computed damping rates confirm the estimates obtained by fits to
experimental data [Frederiksen et al., Phys. Rev. B, 75, 205413(R)(2007)]. Our
method indicates that an order-of-magnitude variation in the damping is
possible even for relatively small changes in the strain. Such detailed insight
is necessary for a quantitative analysis of damping in metallic atomic chains,
and in explaining the rich phenomenology seen in the experiments.
