Optical black hole

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An optical black hole is a phenomenon in which slow light is passed through a Bose–Einstein condensate that is itself spinning faster than the local speed of light within to create a vortex capable of trapping the light behind an event horizon just as a gravitational black hole would.[1]

Unlike other black hole analogs such as a sonic black hole in a Bose–Einstein condensate, a slow light black hole analog is not expected to mimic the quantum effects of a black hole, and thus not emit Hawking radiation. It does, however, mimic the classical properties of a gravitational black hole, making it potentially useful in studying other properties of black holes.[2] More recently, some physicists have developed a fiber optic based system which they believe will emit Hawking radiation.[3]

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  1. ^ Saswato, Das (2008). "Physicists Make Artificial Black Hole Using Optical Fiber". Aerospace. IEEE Spectrum. Retrieved May 4, 2012.
  2. ^ Unruh, W.G.; Schützhold, R. (2003). "On Slow Light as a Black Hole Analogue". Physical Review D. 68 (2): 024008. arXiv:gr-qc/0303028. Bibcode:2003PhRvD..68b4008U. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.68.024008. S2CID 54222908.
  3. ^ Philbin, Thomas G.; Kuklewicz, Chris; Robertson, Scott; Hill, Stephen; König, Friedrich; Leonhardt, Ulf (2008). "Fiber-optical analog of the event horizon". Science. 319 (5868): 1367–1370. arXiv:0711.4796. Bibcode:2008Sci...319.1367P. doi:10.1126/science.1153625. PMID 18323448. S2CID 206510683.