Proposal for an analog Schwarzschild black hole in condensates of light

TL;DR

This paper proposes creating an analog of a Schwarzschild black hole using light condensates, enabling the study of Hawking radiation and correlations in a controlled laboratory setting.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to simulate black hole physics in photon condensates and analyzes the resulting Hawking radiation and correlations theoretically.

Findings

Theoretical analysis of Hawking radiation in photon condensate black holes.

Prediction of measurable spatial correlations in emitted light.

Characterization of greybody factors for the analog black hole.

Abstract

By etching a hole in the mirrors or by placing a scatterer in the center of a cavity, we can create a sink for light. In a Bose-Einstein condensate of photons this sink results in the creation of a so-called radial vortex, which is a two-dimensional analogue of a Schwarzschild black hole. We theoretically investigate the Hawking radiation and the associated greybody factor of this Schwarzschild black hole. In particular, we determine the density-density and velocity-velocity correlation functions of the Hawking radiation, which can be measured by observing the spatial correlations in the fluctuations in the light emitted by the cavity.