Acoustic black holes from supercurrent tunneling

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel method to create acoustic black holes using Josephson junctions in superconductors, potentially enabling experimental observation of Hawking radiation in condensed matter systems.

Contribution

It introduces a new approach to simulate acoustic black holes via supercurrent tunneling in Josephson junctions, linking superconducting electronics with black hole analogs.

Findings

Acoustic black holes can be modeled in Josephson junctions.

Hawking temperature could be experimentally verified with sufficient tunneling current.

The metric of the acoustic black hole is expressed in superconducting electronic language.

Abstract

We present a version of acoustic black holes by using the principle of the Josephson effect. We find that in the case two superconductors $A$ and $B$ are separated by an insulating barrier, an acoustic black hole may be created in the middle region between the two superconductors. We discuss in detail how to describe an acoustic black hole in the Josephson junction and write the metric in the langauge of the superconducting electronics. Our final results infer that for big enough tunneling current and thickness of the junction, experimental verification of the Hawking temperature could be possible.