Quantum Simulation of Hawking-Unruh Radiation
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Speaker：
Prof. Cheng Chin (University of Chicago)
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Time：
4:00pm - 5:00pm, Aug 08, 2018.
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Location：
W563, Physics Building
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Abstract:
Quantum phenomena in a curved spacetime are intriguing research topics that aim to offer hints to the not-yet-known theory of quantum gravity. One famous prediction is the Hawking-Unruh radiation, the manifestation of Minkowski vacuum in an accelerating reference frame. We simulate the radiation by evolving a parametrically driven Bose-Einstein condensate of atoms, which radiates coherent pairs of atoms with opposite momenta. We observe a matterwave field which follows a Boltzmann distribution in local measurements. The extracted temperature and entropy are in agreement with Unruh's predictions. We further observe the long-distance phase coherence and temporal reversibility of emitted matter-waves, hallmarks that distinguish Unruh radiations from classical counterparts. Our results may lead to further insights regarding the nature of quantum dynamics in a curved spacetime.
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References：
J. Hu, L. Feng, Z. Zhang, and C. Chin, arXiv:1807.07504.
