Interferometric Unruh detectors for Bose-Einstein condensates
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
2020-12-22 v2 Quantum Gases
Abstract
The Unruh effect predicts a thermal response for an accelerated detector moving through the vacuum. Here we propose an interferometric scheme to observe an analogue of the circular Unruh effect using a localized laser coupled to a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). Quantum fluctuations in the condensate are governed by an effective relativistic field theory, and as demonstrated, the coupled laser field acts as an effective Unruh-DeWitt detector thereof. The effective speed of light is lowered by 12 orders of magnitude to the sound velocity in the BEC. For detectors traveling close to the sound speed, observation of the Unruh effect in the analogue system becomes experimentally feasible.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2007.07160,
title = {Interferometric Unruh detectors for Bose-Einstein condensates},
author = {Cisco Gooding and Steffen Biermann and Sebastian Erne and Jorma Louko and William G. Unruh and Joerg Schmiedmayer and Silke Weinfurtner},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.07160},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
9 pages, 2 figures