Realization of a Sonic Black Hole Analog in a Bose-Einstein Condensate

Abstract

We have created an analog of a black hole in a Bose-Einstein condensate. In this sonic black hole, sound waves, rather than light waves, cannot escape the event horizon. A steplike potential accelerates the flow of the condensate to velocities which cross and exceed the speed of sound by an order of magnitude. The Landau critical velocity is therefore surpassed. The point where the flow velocity equals the speed of sound is the sonic event horizon. The effective gravity is determined from the profiles of the velocity and speed of sound. A simulation finds negative energy excitations, by means of Bragg spectroscopy.

Black-hole lasing in coherently coupled two-component atomic condensates

“…On one hand, it shows the same type of non-diagonal terms as in Eq. (19), with the coherent coupling amplitude Ω replaced by the product Ω a Ω * b /∆. On the other hand, new diagonal terms appear that were not present in the simple two-level model.…”

“…In these conditions, the operator in Eq. (19), which describes the internal coupling, can be straightforwardly generalized as…”

“…The experimental realisation of sonic BH configurations in a BEC has been for example achieved [19]. Moreover, the knowledge of the microscopic theory describing a BEC, in the context of gravity analogues, allows for the investigation of effects related to the so-called trans-planckian problem, which is concerned with the physics at scales shorter than the Planck scale.…”

Scattering coefficients and gray-body factor for 1D BEC acoustic black holes: Exact results

“…This has opened up new possibilities to either directly detect Hawking radiation experimentally or to detect certain effects associated with Hawking radiation. Experiments have been done with water tanks [11], quantum optics [12], polaritons [13], and Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) [14]. A major difficulty is that the signal for Hawking radiation is weak in most systems compared to background effects.…”

Controlling the velocities and the number of emitted particles in the tunneling to open space dynamics

“…The confinement of BECs [6], their interparticle interactions [7], and their dimensionality [8][9][10] can be manipulated in experiments almost at will. Using these extensive mechanisms of control, BECs are used as so-called quantum simulators to study a variety of physical systems: Solid state systems are studied with optical lattices [1,[11][12][13] and even problems in astrophysics are tackled [14][15][16].…”