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Analogue spacetimes from nonrelativistic Goldstone modes in spinor condensates

Justin H. Wilson, Jonathan B. Curtis, Victor M. Galitski

Published Jan 15, 2020• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

It is well established that linear dispersive modes in a flowing quantum fluid behave as though they are coupled to an Einstein-Hilbert metric and exhibit a host of phenomena coming from quantum field theory in curved space, including Hawking radiation. We extend this analogy to any nonrelativistic Goldstone mode in a flowing spinor Bose-Einstein condensate. In addition to showing the linear dispersive result for all such modes, we show that the quadratically dispersive modes couple to a special nonrelativistic spacetime called a Newton-Cartan geometry. The kind of spacetime (Einstein-Hilbert or Newton-Cartan) is intimately linked to the mean-field phase of the condensate. To illustrate the general result, we further provide the specific theory in the context of a pseudo-spin-1/2 condensate where we can tune between relativistic and nonrelativistic geometries. We uncover the fate of Hawking radiation upon such a transition: it vanishes and remains absent in the Newton-Cartan geometry despite the fact that any fluid flow creates a horizon for certain wave numbers. Finally, we use the coupling to different spacetimes to compute and relate various energy and momentum currents in these analogue systems. While this result is general, present day experiments can realize these different spacetimes including the magnon modes for spin-1 condensates such as $^{87}$Rb, $^{7}$Li, $^{14}$K (Newton-Cartan), and $^{23}$Na (Einstein-Hilbert).

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Analog spacetimes from nonrelativistic Goldstone modes in spinor condensates

Justin H. Wilson, Jonathan B. Curtis, Victor M. Galitski

It is well established that linear dispersive modes in a flowing quantum fluid behave as though they are coupled to an Einstein-Hilbert metric and exhibit a host of phenomena coming from quantum field theory in curved space, including Hawking radiation. We extend this analogy to any nonrelativistic Goldstone mode in a flowing spinor Bose-Einstein condensate. In addition to showing the linear dispersive result for all such modes, we show that the quadratically dispersive modes couple to a special nonrelativistic spacetime called a Newton-Cartan geometry. The kind of spacetime (Einstein-Hilbert or Newton-Cartan) is intimately linked to the mean-field phase of the condensate. To illustrate the general result, we further provide the specific theory in the context of a pseudospin-1/2 condensate where we can tune between relativistic and nonrelativistic geometries. We uncover the fate of Hawking radiation upon such a transition: it vanishes and remains absent in the Newton-Cartan geometry despite the fact that any fluid flow creates a horizon for certain wave numbers. Finally, we use the coupling to different spacetimes to compute and relate various energy and momentum currents in these analog systems. While this result is general, present-day experiments can realize these different spacetimes including the magnon modes for spin-1 condensates such as $^{87}\mathrm{Rb}$, $^{7}\mathrm{Li}$, $^{41}\mathrm{K}$ (Newton-Cartan), and $^{23}\mathrm{Na}$ (Einstein-Hilbert).

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Analogue Hawking radiation, superradiance and sonic horizons in Bose-Einstein condensates

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Analogue Hawking radiation in an exactly solvable model of BEC

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This Thesis develops in the field of analogue gravity, a branch of physics which relies on a specific correspondence that exists between fluid dynamics and curved spacetimes; thanks to that, effects which are hard to study in the gravitational context are investigated in the realm of hydrodynamics with the hope that the consequent results could be transferred back to the cosmological domain and give us better insights in the gravitational context. In this Thesis, I try to introduce the reader to the realm of analogue gravity and to the concepts of Bose-Einstein condensation, Hawking radiation and its analogue counterpart (Chapter 1 and 2); then in Chapter 3 and 4 I describe the details of our work. In the past years, we have developed two directions of research, both aimed at the characterization of the analogue Hawking radiation in Bose-Einstein condensates. One side of our work had the purpose of investigating the results obtained in recent experiments apt to the detection of the analogue Hawking radiation in a quantum gas. Our results are very important in the description of the phenomena and give insights on how to develop future experiments (Chapter 3). The other side of our work aimed at the characterization of this effect from a theoretical point of view by means of an innovative approach, which allows for a much deeper and more detailed description of the radiation and helps shine new light on this effect (Chapter 4). In Chapter 5 we briefly discuss the possible developments of our studying, highlighting the missing pieces of this field and suggesting possible ways to approach the existing problems.

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Emergent quantum field theories on curved spacetimes in spinor Bose-Einstein condensates: From scalar to Proca fields

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We consider excitations of a spin-1 Bose-Einstein-condensate in the vicinity of different mean-field configurations and derive mappings to emergent relativistic quantum field theories minimally coupled to curved acoustic spacetimes. The quantum fields are typically identified with Nambu-Goldstone bosons, such that the structure of the analog quantum field theories on curved spacetimes depends on the (spontaneous) symmetry breaking pattern of the respective ground state. The emergent spacetime geometries are independent of each other and exhibit bimetricity in the polar and antiferromagnetic phase, whereas one has trimetricity in the ferromagnetic phase. Compared to scalar BECs, the spinor degrees of freedom allow us to investigate massive vector and scalar fields where the former is a spin-nematic rotation mode in the polar phase, which can be cast into a Proca field that is minimally coupled to a curved spacetime that emerges on length scales larger than the spin-healing length. Finally, we specify the Zeeman couplings and the condensate trap to be spacetime-dependent such that a cosmological Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker metric can be achieved. This work enables a pathway towards quantum-simulating cosmological particle production of Proca quanta via quenching the quadratic Zeeman coefficient or via magnetic field ramps, which both result in the creation of spin-nematic squeezed states.

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Analogue gravity with Bose-Einstein condensates

Adrià Delhom, Luca Giacomelli

Analogue gravity explores how collective excitations in condensed matter systems can reproduce the behavior of fields in curved spacetimes. An important example is the acoustic black holes that can occur for sound in a moving fluid. In these lecture notes, we focus on atomic Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs), quantum fluids that provide an interesting platform for analogue gravity studies thanks to their accurate theoretical description, remarkable experimental control, and ultralow temperatures that allow the quantum nature of sound to emerge. We give a pedagogical introduction to analogue black holes and the theoretical description of BECs and their elementary excitations, which behave as quantum fields in curved spacetimes. We then apply these tools to survey the current understanding of black-hole superradiance and analogue Hawking radiation, including explicit examples and numerical methods.

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It is well established that linear dispersive modes in a flowing quantum fluid behave as though they are coupled to an Einstein-Hilbert metric and exhibit a host of phenomena coming from quantum field theory in curved space, including Hawking radiation. We extend this analogy to any nonrelativistic Goldstone mode in a flowing spinor Bose-Einstein condensate. In addition to showing the linear dispersive result for all such modes, we show that the quadratically dispersive modes couple to a special nonrelativistic spacetime called a Newton-Cartan geometry. The kind of spacetime (Einstein-Hilbert or Newton-Cartan) is intimately linked to the mean-field phase of the condensate. To illustrate the general result, we further provide the specific theory in the context of a pseudo-spin-1/2 condensate where we can tune between relativistic and nonrelativistic geometries. We uncover the fate of Hawking radiation upon such a transition: it vanishes and remains absent in the Newton-Cartan geometry despite the fact that any fluid flow creates a horizon for certain wave numbers. Finally, we use the coupling to different spacetimes to compute and relate various energy and momentum currents in these analogue systems. While this result is general, present day experiments can realize these different spacetimes including the magnon modes for spin-1 condensates such as 87^{87}87Rb, 7^{7}7Li, 14^{14}14K (Newton-Cartan), and 23^{23}23Na (Einstein-Hilbert).
It is well established that linear dispersive modes in a flowing quantum fluid behave as though they are coupled to an Einstein-Hilbert metric and exhibit a host of phenomena coming from quantum field theory in curved space, including Hawking radiation. We extend this analogy to any nonrelativistic Goldstone mode in a flowing spinor Bose-Einstein condensate. In addition to showing the linear dispersive result for all such modes, we show that the quadratically dispersive modes couple to a special nonrelativistic spacetime called a Newton-Cartan geometry. The kind of spacetime (Einstein-Hilbert or Newton-Cartan) is intimately linked to the mean-field phase of the condensate. To illustrate the general result, we further provide the specific theory in the context of a pseudospin-1/2 condensate where we can tune between relativistic and nonrelativistic geometries. We uncover the fate of Hawking radiation upon such a transition: it vanishes and remains absent in the Newton-Cartan geometry despite the fact that any fluid flow creates a horizon for certain wave numbers. Finally, we use the coupling to different spacetimes to compute and relate various energy and momentum currents in these analog systems. While this result is general, present-day experiments can realize these different spacetimes including the magnon modes for spin-1 condensates such as 87Rb^{87}\mathrm{Rb}87Rb, 7Li^{7}\mathrm{Li}7Li, 41K^{41}\mathrm{K}41K (Newton-Cartan), and 23Na^{23}\mathrm{Na}23Na (Einstein-Hilbert).
The propagation of fluctuations in the velocity potential of an inviscid, irrotational fluid is governed by a wave equation very similar to that governing the propagation of massless scalar fields in curved spacetime. This similarity allows certain fluid systems to be used as experimentally realisable models for objects that cannot be studied under controlled conditions, such as black holes and ultrarelativitsic rotating stars. The analogy applies only to the propagation of fields in a fixed background, not to the behaviour of the background itself. However, even this limited similarity has excited a great deal of interest from researchers, since it suggests that phenomena such as superradiance and Hawking radiation may have analogues in superfluids. In recent years, experimental advances in the creation and manipulation of Bose-Einstein condensates have provided researchers with very low temperature systems possessing a uniquely simple microscopic theory. Furthermore, under certain long-length-scale approximations, Bose-Einstein condensates can be described as classical irrotational inviscid fluids, and therefore can be treated as analogues of appropriate gravitational systems. We present a comprehensive and detailed critical review of the mean-field theory of Bose-Einstein condensates, the conditions under which Bose-Einstein condensates can be treated as an analogue gravity system, the construction of analogue black holes, and several derivations of Hawking radiation and analogue Hawking radiation. The interdisciplinary nature of analogue gravity means that the relevant results are widely scattered in the literature, and we consider this critical review and discussion of the relevant literature to be a central and noteworthy element of the project. We then analyse in detail a recent derivation of analogue Hawking radiation in Bose-Einstein condensates as a consequence of quantum depletion. We elucidate the methodology and the physical meaning of the results by comparison with the derivations of Hawking radiation considered previously, and discuss possible extensions and improvements. We also present an original investigation of analogue superradiance in simple vortices, with the vortex density profile chosen to mimic a realistic vortex in a Bose-Einstein condensate. We find that superradiant amplification occurs and is likely to be significant, but our long-length-scale approximation is of dubious validity near the scattering point.
Hawking radiation, the spontaneous emission of thermal photons from an event horizon, is one of the most intriguing and elusive predictions of field theory in curved spacetimes. A formally analogue phenomenon occurs at the supersonic transition of a fluid: in this respect, ultracold gases stand out among the most promising systems but the theoretical modelling of this effect has always been carried out in semiclassical approximation, borrowing part of the analysis from the gravitational analogy. Here we discuss the exact solution of a one-dimensional Bose gas flowing against an obstacle, showing that spontaneous phonon emission (the analogue of Hawking radiation) is predicted without reference to the gravitational analogy. Long after the creation of the obstacle, the fluid settles into a stationary state displaying the emission of sound waves (phonons) in the upstream direction. A careful analysis shows that a precise correspondence between this phenomenon and the spontaneous emission of radiation from an event horizon requires additional conditions to be met in future experiments aimed at identifying the occurrence of the Hawking-like mechanism in Bose-Einstein condensates.
This Thesis develops in the field of analogue gravity, a branch of physics which relies on a specific correspondence that exists between fluid dynamics and curved spacetimes; thanks to that, effects which are hard to study in the gravitational context are investigated in the realm of hydrodynamics with the hope that the consequent results could be transferred back to the cosmological domain and give us better insights in the gravitational context. In this Thesis, I try to introduce the reader to the realm of analogue gravity and to the concepts of Bose-Einstein condensation, Hawking radiation and its analogue counterpart (Chapter 1 and 2); then in Chapter 3 and 4 I describe the details of our work. In the past years, we have developed two directions of research, both aimed at the characterization of the analogue Hawking radiation in Bose-Einstein condensates. One side of our work had the purpose of investigating the results obtained in recent experiments apt to the detection of the analogue Hawking radiation in a quantum gas. Our results are very important in the description of the phenomena and give insights on how to develop future experiments (Chapter 3). The other side of our work aimed at the characterization of this effect from a theoretical point of view by means of an innovative approach, which allows for a much deeper and more detailed description of the radiation and helps shine new light on this effect (Chapter 4). In Chapter 5 we briefly discuss the possible developments of our studying, highlighting the missing pieces of this field and suggesting possible ways to approach the existing problems.
We consider excitations of a spin-1 Bose-Einstein-condensate in the vicinity of different mean-field configurations and derive mappings to emergent relativistic quantum field theories minimally coupled to curved acoustic spacetimes. The quantum fields are typically identified with Nambu-Goldstone bosons, such that the structure of the analog quantum field theories on curved spacetimes depends on the (spontaneous) symmetry breaking pattern of the respective ground state. The emergent spacetime geometries are independent of each other and exhibit bimetricity in the polar and antiferromagnetic phase, whereas one has trimetricity in the ferromagnetic phase. Compared to scalar BECs, the spinor degrees of freedom allow us to investigate massive vector and scalar fields where the former is a spin-nematic rotation mode in the polar phase, which can be cast into a Proca field that is minimally coupled to a curved spacetime that emerges on length scales larger than the spin-healing length. Finally, we specify the Zeeman couplings and the condensate trap to be spacetime-dependent such that a cosmological Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker metric can be achieved. This work enables a pathway towards quantum-simulating cosmological particle production of Proca quanta via quenching the quadratic Zeeman coefficient or via magnetic field ramps, which both result in the creation of spin-nematic squeezed states.
Analogue gravity explores how collective excitations in condensed matter systems can reproduce the behavior of fields in curved spacetimes. An important example is the acoustic black holes that can occur for sound in a moving fluid. In these lecture notes, we focus on atomic Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs), quantum fluids that provide an interesting platform for analogue gravity studies thanks to their accurate theoretical description, remarkable experimental control, and ultralow temperatures that allow the quantum nature of sound to emerge. We give a pedagogical introduction to analogue black holes and the theoretical description of BECs and their elementary excitations, which behave as quantum fields in curved spacetimes. We then apply these tools to survey the current understanding of black-hole superradiance and analogue Hawking radiation, including explicit examples and numerical methods.