LAUSR

We develop a microscopic theory of the dynamic structure factor to describe the Bogoliubov-Anderson-Goldstone phonon mode and its damping rate in a strongly interacting Fermi gas at finite temperature. It is based on a density functional approach---the so-called superfluid local density approximation. The accuracy of the theory is quantitatively examined by comparing the theoretical predictions with recent experimental measurements for the local dynamic structure factor of a nearly homogeneous unitary Fermi gas at low transferred momentum [S. Hoinka et al., Nat. Phys. 13, 943 (2017)], without any free parameters. We calculate the dynamic structure factor as functions of temperature and transferred momentum, and determine the temperature evolution of the phonon damping rate, by considering the dominant decay process of the phonon mode via scatterings off fermionic quasiparticles. These predictions can be confronted with future Bragg scattering experiments on a unitary Fermi gas near the superfluid transition.