MG14 - Talk detail

Back to previous page

 Participant

Institution

Session

Accepted

Yes

Order

Time

Talk

Title

Abstract

Analogue gravity, i.e. the ability to create artificial spacetimes that mimic those found for example in a GR or astrophysical context, provides us with the unique opportunity to experimentally investigate cosmological phenomena in controlled laboratory environments. These phenomena typically involve the kinematics, the behaviour of fields in the presence of a curved spacetime metric, rather than the dynamics as the latter involve the specific details of the Einstein equations that are not usually reproduced in the analogue models based e.g. on flowing fluids and therefore hydrodynamical equations. Examples are Hawking radiation and more recently, Penrose superradiance from rotating black holes has also attracted attention. We will review progress in experiments based upon so-called photon fluids and we will show that indeed, using light it is possible to create a superfluid medium in which we may observe analogue gravity effects. One of the main advantages of the photon fluid is that it is naturally a 2D system and therefore represents and an important step forward with respect to previous fluid based systems that were 1D. In particular, the 2D nature is essential if we wish to study effects related to vorticity.

Pdf file

Back to previous page