Synthetic Black Hole Event Horizon Created in UK Laboratory

Join the discussion
Registration is free. Start your own thread to ask a follow-up.
2 replies · 4K views
SF
Researchers at St. Andrews University, Scotland, claim to have found a way to simulate an event horizon of a black hole - not through a new cosmic observation technique, and not by a high powered supercomputer… but in the laboratory. Using lasers, a length of optical fiber and depending on some bizarre quantum mechanics, a "singularity" may be created to alter a laser's wavelength, synthesizing the effects of an event horizon. If this experiment can produce an event horizon, the theoretical phenomenon of Hawking Radiation may be tested, perhaps giving Stephen Hawking the best chance yet of winning the Nobel Prize.

http://www.universetoday.com/2008/02/13/synthetic-black-hole-event-horizon-created-in-uk-laboratory/
 
Astronomy news on Phys.org
SF said:
Researchers at St. Andrews University, Scotland, claim to have found a way to simulate an event horizon of a black hole - not through a new cosmic observation technique, and not by a high powered supercomputer… but in the laboratory. Using lasers, a length of optical fiber and depending on some bizarre quantum mechanics, a "singularity" may be created to alter a laser's wavelength, synthesizing the effects of an event horizon. If this experiment can produce an event horizon, the theoretical phenomenon of Hawking Radiation may be tested, perhaps giving Stephen Hawking the best chance yet of winning the Nobel Prize.

http://www.universetoday.com/2008/02/13/synthetic-black-hole-event-horizon-created-in-uk-laboratory/
Just came across this item, http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37088877
 
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: DrClaude
See http://arxiv.org/abs/1409.6550, Observation of self-amplifying Hawking radiation in an analog black hole laser for the arxiv version of the paper that appeared in Nature
 
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: berkeman and 1oldman2