A black hole analog could tell us a thing or two about an elusive radiation theoretically emitted by the real thing.
Using a chain of atoms in single-file to simulate the event horizon of a black hole, a team of physicists in 2022 observed the equivalent of what we call Hawking radiation – particles born from disturbances in the quantum fluctuations caused by the black hole's break in spacetime.
This had been done before, but in November 2022 a team led by Lotte Mertens of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands tried something new.
A one-dimensional chain of atoms served as a path for electrons to 'hop' from one position to another. By tuning the ease with which this hopping can occur, the physicists could cause certain properties to vanish, effectively creating a kind of event horizon that interfered with the wave-like nature of the electrons.
The effect of this fake event horizon produced a rise in temperature that matched theoretical expectations of an equivalent black hole system, the team said, but only when part of the chain extended beyond the event horizon.
------ Post added on Oct 10, 2024 at 5:11 AM
Using a chain of atoms in single-file to simulate the event horizon of a black hole, a team of physicists in 2022 observed the equivalent of what we call Hawking radiation – particles born from disturbances in the quantum fluctuations caused by the black hole's break in spacetime.
This had been done before, but in November 2022 a team led by Lotte Mertens of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands tried something new.
A one-dimensional chain of atoms served as a path for electrons to 'hop' from one position to another. By tuning the ease with which this hopping can occur, the physicists could cause certain properties to vanish, effectively creating a kind of event horizon that interfered with the wave-like nature of the electrons.
The effect of this fake event horizon produced a rise in temperature that matched theoretical expectations of an equivalent black hole system, the team said, but only when part of the chain extended beyond the event horizon.
------ Post added on Oct 10, 2024 at 5:11 AM
