Quest for a 'direct' observation of the Unruh effect with classical electrodynamics: In honor of Atsushi Higuchi 60th anniversary

TL;DR

This paper proposes a feasible classical electrodynamics experiment to directly observe the Unruh effect, aiming to bridge the gap between theoretical predictions and experimental verification, inspired by Atsushi Higuchi's work.

Contribution

It introduces a conceptually simple experiment under current technology to directly detect the Unruh effect, inspired by Atsushi Higuchi's Ph.D. thesis.

Findings

Proposes a feasible experiment to observe the Unruh effect.

Connects classical electrodynamics with quantum field theory predictions.

Pays tribute to Atsushi Higuchi's contributions.

Abstract

The Unruh effect is essential to keep the consistency of quantum field theory in inertial and uniformly accelerated frames. Thus, the Unruh effect must be considered as well tested as quantum field theory itself. In spite of it, it would be nice to realize an experiment whose output could be directly interpreted in terms of the Unruh effect. This is not easy because the linear acceleration needed to reach a temperature 1 K is of order $10^{20} {\rm m/s}^2$. We discuss here a conceptually simple experiment reachable under present technology which may accomplish this goal. The inspiration for this proposal can be traced back to Atsushi Higuchi's Ph.D. thesis, which makes it particularly suitable to pay tribute to him on occasion of his $60^{\rm th}$ anniversary.