Metric Signature Transitions in Optical Metamaterials

TL;DR

This paper shows that optical metamaterials can simulate metric signature changes, creating a laboratory model for phenomena related to spacetime transitions in quantum gravity theories.

Contribution

It introduces a metamaterial model that mimics metric signature transitions, providing a tabletop platform for studying spacetime phenomena.

Findings

Metamaterials exhibit (- - + +) effective metric signature.

Signature change transitions lead to particle creation in the model.

Provides a laboratory analogy for spacetime signature change events.

Abstract

We demonstrate that the extraordinary waves in indefinite metamaterials experience (- - + +) effective metric signature. During a metric signature change transition in such a metamaterial, a Minkowski space-time is "created" together with large number of particles populating this space-time. Such metamaterial models provide a table top realization of metric signature change events suggested to occur in Bose-Einstein condensates and quantum gravity theories.