Analog Hawking radiation from an acoustic black hole in a flowing polariton superfluid

TL;DR

This paper proposes a theoretical model for observing Hawking radiation analogs in a flowing polariton superfluid within a microcavity, demonstrating potential experimental signatures and confirming the system's usefulness as a gravitational physics analog.

Contribution

It introduces a method to create and detect analog Hawking radiation in polariton superfluids, expanding the experimental possibilities for simulating gravitational phenomena.

Findings

Signatures of Hawking radiation identified in phonon scattering

Spatial correlations of quantum fluctuations show Hawking effects

Numerical simulations confirm experimental feasibility with current technology

Abstract

We theoretically study Hawking radiation processes from an analog acoustic black hole in a flowing superfluid of exciton-polaritons in a one-dimensional semiconductor microcavity. Polaritons are coherently injected into the microcavity by a laser pump with a suitably tailored spot profile. An event horizon with a large analog surface gravity is created by inserting a defect in the polariton flow along the cavity plane. Experimentally observable signatures of the analog Hawking radiation are identified in the scattering of phonon wavepackets off the horizon, as well as in the spatial correlation pattern of quantum fluctuations of the polariton density. The potential of these table-top optical systems as analog models of gravitational physics is quantitatively confirmed by numerical calculations using realistic parameters for state-of-the-art devices.