Séminaire / Seminar GReCO |
| « Analogue quantum simulation of scalar fields on Schwarzschild and Kerr black holes » |
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Maxime Jacquet |
| The propagation of waves in media may be controlled to engineer situations where the waves propagate as though they were on a curved spacetime, like around a black hole or in an inflating universe. This enables the experimental simulation of field theories on curved spacetime in the semi-classical limit, a method of analogue quantum simulations known as "analogue gravity". In this talk, I will present the basics of analogue gravity and our latest advances at Laboratoire Kastler Brossel with a quantum fluid of light. I will begin with basic considerations on the wave equation in fluid flows to explain what are the knobs we control to create an effective spacetime (the classical geometry) and thus the propagation of waves thereon, as well as the field effects we have access to (like Hawking radiation). I will then move to our setup, the microcavity polariton platform, in which photons are dressed with material excitations (quantum well excitons providing nonlinear interactions) and behave as a fluid of light. I will explain how an accelerating polariton fluid creates a horizon for collective excitations of the fluid (sound waves), and then I will show how to observe Hawking radiation in such an experiment. I will also touch on the possibility to discover new effects with analogue quantum simulations, namely the fluctuation-driven excitation of a quasi-normal mode and resulting modulation of Hawking radiation. Finally, I will explain how to create a rotating geometry with polaritons, opening the possibility to simulate field theories on rotating black hole spacetimes and to observe effects like rotational superradiance and ensuing dynamical instabilities of the field and the underlying spacetime. |
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lundi 30 janvier 2023 - 11:00 Salle des séminaires Évry Schatzman Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris |
| Pages web du séminaire / Seminar's webpage |