Analogue Gravity and ultrashort laser pulse filamentation

TL;DR

This paper explores how ultrashort laser pulse filaments create an analogue spacetime geometry, enabling the study of phenomena like Hawking radiation through conical emission and geodesic analysis.

Contribution

It demonstrates that filamentation-induced refractive index changes can model black hole horizons and Hawking radiation in a laboratory setting.

Findings

Conical emission patterns can be reconstructed from geodesics.

Conditions for analogue black hole kinematics are identified.

Potential for observing Hawking radiation analogues is highlighted.

Abstract

Ultrashort laser pulse filaments in dispersive nonlinear Kerr media induce a moving refractive index perturbation which modifies the space-time geometry as seen by co-propagating light rays. We study the analogue geometry induced by the filament and show that one of the most evident features of filamentation, namely conical emission, may be precisely reconstructed from the geodesics. We highlight the existence of favorable conditions for the study of analogue black hole kinematics and Hawking type radiation.