Abstract.
Quantum fields in curved spacetimes predict effects such as Hawking radiation from black holes or particle production in the early Universe, which are extremely hard to observe directly. This is where analogue gravity comes into play. Sound waves in a moving fluid propagate as a scalar field on an effective curved spacetime, which is determined by the background flow and can therefore be controlled in the laboratory. In these lectures, we will derive the so-called acoustic metric from the equations of fluid dynamics and use it to describe acoustic horizons, ergoregions and the analogue Hawking effect. We will then focus on Bose–Einstein condensates, where phonons behave as quantum fields, and review recent experiments on analogue black holes and cosmological particle production. Finally, we will discuss what these quantum simulators can, and cannot, teach us about gravity.
This event is part of the master lecture series organized by the Section for Theoretical Physics.