Interferometric Unruh Detectors for Bose-Einstein Condensates

Gooding, Cisco; Biermann, Steffen; Erne, Sebastian; Louko, Jorma; Unruh, William G.; Schmiedmayer, Joerg; Weinfurtner, Silke

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.

Citation

Gooding, C., Biermann, S., Erne, S., Louko, J., Unruh, W. G., Schmiedmayer, J., & Weinfurtner, S. (2020). Interferometric Unruh Detectors for Bose-Einstein Condensates. Physical Review Letters, 125(21), Article 213603. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.213603

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 7, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Nov 20, 2020
• Publication Date: Nov 20, 2020
• Deposit Date: Dec 3, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 3, 2020
• Journal: Physical Review Letters
• Print ISSN: 0031-9007
• Electronic ISSN: 1079-7114
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 125
• Issue: 21
• Article Number: 213603
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.213603
• Keywords: General Physics and Astronomy
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5064712
• Publisher URL: https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.213603