Laser Light Re-creates 'Black Holes' in the Lab

yodasz writes "The New Scientist reports that a team of researchers from the UK were able to recreate a black hole's event horizon in the lab by firing a laser pulse down an optical fibre. The team's observations confirm predictions made by cosmologists and now they are trying to prove Hawking's hypothesis of escaping particles, dubbed Hawking radiation. 'The first pulse distorts the optical properties of the fibre simply by traveling through it. This distortion forces the speedy probe wave to slow down dramatically when it catches up with the slower pulse and tries to move through it. In fact, the probe wave becomes trapped and can never overtake the pulse's leading edge, which effectively becomes a black hole event horizon, beyond which light cannot escape.'"

Comments

Black Hole

[gammygator]

As long as they didn't create a real black hole.

That would suck.

Re:Black Hole

[CSMatt]

Well it certainly wouldn't blow.

Re:Black Hole

[spidercoz]

ugh, dude, did you RTFA? this experiment had nothing to do with black holes, singularities, Hawking radiation, or any kind of mass. It was a trick of optics to produce an ANALOGUE of an event horizon

it is currently IMPOSSIBLE to produce any kind of singularity. The LHC has a chance, infinitesimal, to do so, but that's still quite a ways off.

Re:Black Hole

[utnapistim]

it is currently IMPOSSIBLE to produce any kind of singularity.

Ok wise guy, then explain Chuck Norris!

Sounds safe

[192939495969798999]

That sounds safe, to reproduce the effects of the point at which all matter collapses into a virtual singularity. Where were they testing this again? Somewhere on Earth? Alrighty then... Taxi!

Re:Sounds safe

[orclevegam]

That sounds safe, to reproduce the effects of the point at which all matter collapses into a virtual singularity. Where were they testing this again? Somewhere on Earth? Alrighty then... Taxi! They aren't simulating a black hole, the title is misleading. They're simulating the optical properties of a black holes event horizon. Subtle but very important difference.

Background info needed..

[lawaetf1]

could someone give me a little prep on this article.. A paragraph or two on how the universe works would be good. cheers. /obligatory

Re:Am I slow?

[sm62704]

Wikipedia? What? You know that's not a reliable source of information. So I looked it up in the uncyclopedia:

A Black hole is an impossible object which makes the Universe work. It has the useful property of being "undetectable". It's like when your spouse comes home with a dent in the car, and blames it on an invisible black mass; the dent is proof of the black mass, but you can't, and never will be able to see it with CCTV cameras, but you know it's there. "Dark matter" is an equally undetectable force that causes cars to defy gravity, and hit invisible black holes. Astronomers will tell you that lots of them have spouses with dents in their cars, and can explain this is very technical terms, so you won't be able to understand why it's not possible.

It would blow

[Anonymous Coward]

It would blow Hawking Radiation

Please enough already...

[mahlerfan999]

Please, New Scientist is not a credible source for news on physical science. I wish people would stop posting New Scientist articles. If you want to find out what's hot in physics the Physical Review Focus is a great accessible source of real science stories that are important, and unlike the PRL they are free to read. http://focus.aps.org/

Re:black hole analogy is a stretch

[Biff Stu]

I am also perplexed. I to am not an expert on relativity & cosmology, but I know a thing or two about nonlinear optics. An intense light field can modify the index of refraction of the medium through which it's propagating. This is known as the AC or optical Kerr effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerr_effect/ The second light pulse will gradually encounter a higher index as it approaches the first pulse and therefore slow down. While I know nothing about Hawking radiation, it seems like gravity must be somehow involved, and this experiment is all about electromagnetic forces.

rindler horizon

[F�an�ro]

This reminds me of a rindler horizon

A phenomen that has some similarities with a black hole, but without gravitational effects involved.

How the universe works

[spun]

God made the universe 6,000 years ago. If you do not worship him and subjugate yourself to his will, he will torture you forever. He just put in things like dinosaur bones and black holes to mess with your head, to get you to disbelieve in him, so that he can torture you forever without feeling guilty about it.

He's kinda messed up because he was alone for like, eternity, until he made up some friends in his head, but he's incapable of imagining anything that is actually his peer, so he secretly hates us all for not providing the companionship he needs. That is how the universe works.

Re:Am I slow?

[Jerf]

The bit that's missing from this article, and that completes the explanation of why this is interesting, is the question of information.

One of the open questions facing physics is whether the event horizon of a black hole destroys information. It's not just the event horizon itself that is interesting, the destruction of information is by itself a legitimately interesting question by itself.

If we can create an optical event horizon that also seems to destroy information, this may allow us to witness how the Universe responds to such information destruction. This is radically easier than creating a large enough black hole to observe these effects. Black hole horizons are interesting in many ways; this may allow us to extract and experiment on one aspect of them.

I've seen a few proposals for the creation of an optical black hole, this is the first claim I've seen that someone may have actually created one.