Anisotropic metamaterial as an analogue of a black hole

TL;DR

This paper explores how anisotropic metamaterials can simulate black hole spacetime effects on light, revealing how specific electromagnetic properties correspond to relativistic phenomena like time dilation and spatial curvature.

Contribution

It introduces a formalism linking anisotropic metamaterials to relativistic spacetime metrics, enabling optical simulation of black hole physics.

Findings

Dielectric permittivity models time dilation effects.

Magnetic permeability models spatial curvature.

Ray paths in metamaterials match relativistic predictions.

Abstract

Propagation of light in a metamaterial medium which mimics curved spacetime and acts like a black hole is studied. We show that for a particular type of spacetimes and wave polarization, the time dilation appears as dielectric permittivity, while the spatial curvature manifests as magnetic permeability. The optical analogue to the relativistic Hamiltonian which determines the ray paths (null geodesics) in the anisotropic metamaterial is obtained. By applying the formalism to the Schwarzschild metric, we compare the ray paths with full-wave simulations in the equivalent optical medium.