Benchtop Black Hole Analogues Help Physicists Glimpse the Quantum Universe

http://nautil.us/blog/benchtop-black-holes-help-physicists-glimpse-the-quantum-universe

by dnetesn • 10 years ago

26 9 10 years ago

nautil.us

imglorp2• 10 years ago

Benchtop black hole _analogue_.

dang• 10 years ago

Ok, we'll add that to the title above.

posterboy• 10 years ago

If you need to use a form of the word true to the roots, use analogon and why stop there, ἀνάλογον is just a 'setxkbmap gr' away (or whatever you'd use, this actually took me a bit to find out).

Otherwise, analog is fine, isn't it?

imglorp2• 10 years ago

Agreed for US spelling. TFA chose the Queen's spelling for some reason so I just passed it on.

ccvannorman• 10 years ago

The problem with "analogue" black holes is that they are modeling what we think we already know about black holes. So we've essentially looked up at space, said "There's a weird thing that breaks the laws of physics and works like XYZ, so let's model exactly XYZ to see if the behaviors match up to predictions in the lab."

You shouldn't expect to find any surprises if your lab mockup of the thing you're studying is based off the predictive models.

To find something novel you need something that actually does break the laws of physics, not something that will merely produce the same result if our assumptions about the object were correct. It's kind of a tautology.

nikofeyn• 10 years ago

my assumption was that you build something that models what we know about the black hole but then look for new properties in the model since we can actually "play" with it. then we try and map the new properties or physics back to the real object. i don't know if that's what's happening, but it seems to be a decent approach.

sevenless• 10 years ago

I think it's more that, they are systems that model what we know about gravity and light, just taken to an extreme point where light can't escape. That speculation is where the notion of black holes came from in the first place. If you have a physical system that behaves like gravity and light in some way and is easier to study, it's pretty reasonable to turn the dial up to a point where analog-light can't escape from analog-gravity and see if it can confirm your theories about black holes. It could quite easily lead to surprises.

edem• 10 years ago

So how does this "benchtop" version work?

ThePhysicist• 10 years ago

Another system that can model curved space times (and singularities) is a simple chain of coupled pendula, or alternatively a long Josephson junction, which has the same equation of motion.

The system can have a soliton solution (a 360 degree twist in the chain) that travels along the chain. The spacetime curvature along the soliton (i.e. the frequency dispersion relation for small harmonic waves on top of the solution) exhibits an event horizon. But like with the other system, the analogy does not teach us anything novel about curved spacetimes, though it can allow for some interesting phenomena.

Benchtop Black Hole Analogues Help Physicists Glimpse the Quantum Universe

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