Physicists have devised a way to observe the elusive ‘extraordinary effect’ in the laboratory

A group of physicists say they did They discovered two characteristics of the acceleration of matter that they believe could lead to an unprecedented type of radiation being observed. Newly described The properties mean that tracking radiation — known as the Unruh effect — can occur in bench-top lab experiments.

The Unrue effect in nature requires a ridiculous amount of acceleration to theoretically be observedAnd since it is only visible from the perspective of an object accelerating in a vacuum, it is impossible to see. But thanks to recent advances, the Unruh effect can be seen in a laboratory experiment.

In new research, a team of scientists describes two previously unknown aspects of the quantum field, which means the Unruh effect can be directly observed. First, the effect can be potentiated, meaning that a generally weak effect becomes more pronounced under certain conditions. A second event is when a sufficiently accelerated atom becomes transparent. There was a group study Published This spring in Physical Review Letters.

The Unruh effect (or Fulling-Davis-Unruh effect, named for the physicists who first proposed its existence in the 1970s) is a phenomenon predicted by quantum field theory, which states that an entity (whether a particle or a spaceship) accelerates. A vacuum glows – though not that glowknowYes No external observer accelerates in a vacuum.

“Acceleration-induced transparency means that, due to the nature of its motion, the Unrue effect makes the detector transparent to diurnal changes,” said Barbara Suda, a physicist at the University of Waterloo and lead author of the study. Video call. With Gizmodo. Just as Hawking radiation is emitted by black holes as their gravity pulls on particles, the Unro effect is emitted by objects as they accelerate through space.

There are several reasons why the Unruh effect has not been directly observed. First, the effect requires a ridiculous amount of linear acceleration; To reach a temperature of 1 K, an observer observing the accelerator sees the glow, the observer It should be expeditedG.V 100 quintillion meters per square second. glow thermal unru effect; The faster the speed of the object, the higher the temperature of the glow It will be hot.

Previous methods of observing Unruh’s effect recommended. But this Thanks to their findings, the team believes they have a compelling chance to observe the effect About the properties of quantum field.

“We wanted to create a customized experiment that could unambiguously reveal the Unruh effect and then provide a platform to study various related aspects,” said Vivek Sudhir, a physicist at MIT and co-author of the latest work. “Unambiguously here is the key point: in a particle accelerator, groups of particles are actually accelerated, which means that it becomes very difficult to infer a very precise Unruh effect from the medium of various interactions between particles in a group.”

Sudhir concluded: “In a sense, we need to measure the properties of a single, well-defined accelerator particle very precisely, which is not what particle accelerators were designed for.”

Central to their proposed experiment is to induce the Unruh effect in a laboratory setting, using an atom as a detector of the Unruh effect. By bombarding an atom with photons, the team raises the particle to a higher energy level, and its transparency caused by the acceleration mutes the particle to any everyday noise that would confound the existence of the Unruh effect.

By stimulating the particle with a laser, Oda said, “you increase the probability of seeing the Unruh effect, and the probability increases with the number of photons in the field.” “That number can be large depending on how powerful your laser is. In other words, researchers can strike containing the particle Quadrillion sHotens, they increase the probability of an unruly effect by 15 orders of magnitude.

Because the Unruh effect is similar to Hawking radiation in many ways, the researchers believe that the two quantum field properties they recently described can be used to excite Hawking radiation and indicate gravitational transparency. Since Hawking radiation has never been observed, the Unrue effect degassing may be a step towards it. A better understanding of the theoretical glow around black holes.

Of course, these results don’t mean much unless the Unruh effect can be observed directly in a laboratory setting — the researchers’ next step. Exactly when This test will be conducted, however, remains to be seen.

Also: Black hole lab shows Stephen Hawking was right, apparently