The streaking stars seen from the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon as it jumps to hyperspace is a famous image for Star Wars fans. What would a pilot see if she could go through the vacuum of space? The Unruh effect predicts that she would see a warm glow.
The Unruh effect has not been detected since the 1970s because of the small chance of seeing it. Researchers at MIT and the University of Waterloo believe they have found a way to increase the probability of observing the Unruh effect.
The team proposes stimulating the phenomenon in a way that enhances the Unruh effect while suppressing other effects. The Unruh effect should be revealed by throwing an invisibility cloak over other phenomena.
If it can be realized in a practical experiment, the new stimulated approach with an added layer of invisibility could vastly increase the probability of observing the Unruh effect. The team would shave a few hours off of the wait time if they followed the Unruh effect.
The co-author of the study says there is a chance in our lifetimes where we might actually see this effect.
The co-authors of the study are Barbara oda and Achim Kempf.
The connection is close.
The Fulling-Davies-Unruh effect was proposed by three physicists. The prediction states that a body that is moving fast through a vacuum should feel the warmth of the sun. The effect is related to quantum fluctuations within the vacuum of empty space.
To produce a glow warm enough for detectors to measure, a body such as an atom would have to accelerate to the speed of light in less than a millionth of a second. A fighter pilot experiences a g-force of 10 meters per second squared.
To see this effect in a short amount of time, you would have to have a lot of speed.
What would be the point? The Unruh effect is a validation of quantum interactions between matter and light. For another, the detection could be a mirror of the Hawking effect, a proposal by the physicist Stephen Hawking that predicts a similar thermal glow, or "Hawking radiation," from light and matter interactions in an extreme gravitational field.
There is a close connection between the Unruh effect and the Hawking effect.
A transparent trajectory.
The Unruh effect is predicted to happen in a vacuum. According to quantum field theory, a vacuum is not simply empty space, but rather a field of restless quantum fluctuations, with each frequency band measuring about the size of half a photon. Unruh predicted that a body speeding through a vacuum should amplify the fluctuations in a way that1-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-6556
The researchers introduced a new approach to increase the probability of the Unruh effect by adding light to the entire scenario.
If you accelerate, you are adding more of those fluctuations than this half a photon that is in the vacuum.
Other hunters of the Unruh effect have been deterred from taking the stimulation approach due to the fact that the additional photons would amplify other effects in the vacuum.
oda, Sudhir, and Kempf, however, found a way to use aeration-induced transparency in their paper. They showed that if a body such as an atom could be made to accelerate with a very specific trajectory through a field of photons, the atom would interact with the field in such a way that it would appear invisible to the atom.
We show that by engineering the trajectory of the particle, we can essentially turn off the effects of the Unruh effect.
The physicists predicted that if all other effects were transparent, the researchers could have a better chance of measuring the thermal radiation coming from the Unruh effect.
The researchers have some ideas about how to design an experiment. They plan to use a laser beam at microwave frequencies to accelerate an electron to close the speed of light. They are looking for ways to amplify the Unruh effect while suppressing classical effects.
The mechanism that seems to statistically amplify this effect seems to have been fixed.
More information: Barbara Šoda et al, Acceleration-Induced Effects in Stimulated Light-Matter Interactions, Physical Review Letters (2022). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.163603 Journal information: Physical Review Letters Citation: Physicists embark on a hunt for a long-sought quantum glow (2022, April 26) retrieved 26 April 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-04-physicists-embark-long-sought-quantum.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.
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