Time-resolved and Superradiantly Amplified Unruh Effect

TL;DR

This paper proposes a method to observe the Unruh effect as an early superradiant burst in excited atoms within a cavity, enabling detection at low accelerations by amplifying the effect and distinguishing it from inertial signals.

Contribution

It introduces a cavity-based setup that amplifies and temporally resolves the Unruh effect, making it observable at lower accelerations than previously possible.

Findings

Unruh effect can produce an early superradiant burst under specific conditions.

Cavity suppresses inertial responses while amplifying accelerated atom signals.

The setup allows temporal and intensity discrimination of the Unruh effect.

Abstract

We identify low-acceleration conditions under which the Unruh effect manifests as an early superradiant burst in a collection of excited atoms. The resulting amplified Unruh signal is resolved from the inertial signal both in time and intensity. We demonstrate theoretically that these conditions are realized inside a sub-resonant cavity that highly suppresses the response of an inertial atom, while allowing significant response from an accelerated atom as, owing to the acceleration-induced spectral broadening, it can still couple to the available field modes. The setup thus selectively amplifies the modified field fluctuations underlying the Unruh effect into an early superradiant burst. In comparison, the field fluctuations perceived inertially would cause a superradiant burst much later. In this way, we simultaneously address the extreme acceleration requirement, the weak Unruh signal, and the dominance of the inertial signal, all within a single experimental arrangement.