2006/07/03 by Carlos Barceló, Carlos Barcelo, Stefano Liberati +2 · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Gravitational wave #Hawking #Hawking radiation #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Nuclear physics #Physics #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Quantum mechanics #Radiation #Universe #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.97.171301
published as Phys.Rev.Lett. 97 (2006) 171301 · revtex4, 4 pages, 1 figure
arxiv created 2006/07/03 · openalex publication_date 2006/10/24 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We discuss the issue of quasiparticle production by "analogue black holes" with particular attention paid to the possibility of reproducing Hawking radiation in a laboratory. By constructing simple geometric acoustic models, we obtain a somewhat unexpected result: We show that, in order to obtain a stationary and Planckian emission of quasiparticles, it is not necessary to create a trapped region in the acoustic spacetime (corresponding to a supersonic regime in the fluid flow). It is sufficient to set up a dynamically changing flow asymptotically approaching a sonic regime with sufficient rapidity in laboratory time. This result is generic to curved-space quantum field theory, the "analogue spacetimes" we consider providing a guide to physical intuition, and a possible route to laboratory experiments.