3:30–4:30 pm
Maria Goppert-Mayer Lecture Hall
Kersten Physics Teaching Center
Room 106
5720 S. Ellis Avenue
"Experimental Measurement of the Hawking emission (?)”
William Unruh, The University of British Columbia
Abstract:
Hawking's discovery 45 years ago that black holes, instead of ever growing sinks of energy, emitted radiation and very slowly shrank in size and mass, was one of the most surprising discoveries of physics in the 20th century. Of course physics in an experimental or at least observational science. But small enough black holes to see this effect are rare.
However analogies exist in which one could hope to see this effect, namely flowing fluids where the velocity of flow exceeds the velocity of sound. While
the classical correlate of this has been measured for surface waves in water, recently the quantum effect has also been measured for sound waves in a BEC. I will review the Hawking effect, the measurement in water and these new measurements where one can claim to have seen at least some of the quantum effects of the Hawking process.