Physical Society Colloquium

Measurement of stimulated Hawking radiation in a fluid analog system

Bill Unruh

Department of Physics & Astronomy
University of British Columbia

There is a close relation between the bahaviour of quantum fields in the vicinity of a black hole and of waves in a flowing fluid. Included in this similarity is that the horizon of a black hole should create radiation with a thermal spectrum. We have carried out a series of experiments in which the sstimulated form of this radiation was measured and shown to have a thermal spectrum in the vicinity of the time reverse of a black hole, a white hole analog.