Observation of negative-frequency waves in a water tank: a classical analogue to the Hawking effect?

By G. Rousseaux, C. Mathis, P. Maïssa, T. Philbin, Ulf Leonhardt. 2007

232 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The conversion of positive-frequency waves into negative-frequency waves at the event horizon is the mechanism at the heart of the Hawking radiation of black holes. In black-hole analogues, horizons are formed for waves propagating in a medium against the current when and where the flow exceeds the wave velocity. We report on the first direct observation of negative-frequency waves converted from positive-frequency waves in a moving medium. The measured degree of mode conversion is significantly higher than that expected from the theory.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c68f111d08ff2e3792b8c48eaa2fde7ccce2c010