Acoustic Black Hole in a Stationary Hydrodynamic Flow of Microcavity Polaritons

Year: 2015

Authors: Nguyen H. S., Gerace D., Carusotto I., Sanvitto D., Galopin E., Lemaitre A., Sagnes I., Bloch J., Amo A.

Autors Affiliation: CNRS, LPN, Lab Photon & Nanostruct, F-91460 Marcoussis, France;
Univ Pavia, Dipartimento Fis, I-27100 Pavia, Italy;
Univ Trento, INO CNR BEC Ctr, I-38123 Povo, Italy;
Univ Trento, Dipartimento Fis, I-38123 Povo, Italy;
CNR, Ist Nanosci, NNL, I-73100 Lecce, Italy

Abstract: We report an experimental study of superfluid hydrodynamic effects in a one-dimensional polariton fluid flowing along a laterally patterned semiconductor microcavity and hitting a micron-sized engineered defect. At high excitation power, superfluid propagation effects are observed in the polariton dynamics; in particular, a sharp acoustic horizon is formed at the defect position, separating regions of sub- and supersonic flow. Our experimental findings are quantitatively reproduced by theoretical calculations based on a generalized Gross-Pitaevskii equation. Promising perspectives to observe Hawking radiation via photon correlation measurements are illustrated.

Journal/Review: PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

Volume: 114 (3)      Pages from: 036402-1  to: 036402-5

KeyWords: Hawking radiation; analog; condensate; solitons;
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.036402

Citations: 95
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