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Yuval Rosenberg

Publications and source records attributed to Yuval Rosenberg.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

Optical analogues of black-hole horizons

Hawking radiation is unlikely to be measured from a real black-hole, but can be tested in laboratory analogues. It was predicted as a consequence of quantum mechanics and general relativity, but turned out to be more universal. A refractive index perturbation produce an optical analogue of the black-hole horizon and Hawking radiation that is made of light. We discuss the central and recent experiments of the optical analogue, using hands-on physics. We stress the roles of classical fields, negative frequencies, 'regular optics' and dispersion. Opportunities and challenges ahead are shortly discussed.

physics.optics

Cherenkov Radiation of Light Bullets

Electrically charged particles, moving faster than the speed of light in a medium, emit Cherenkov radiation. Theory predicts electric and magnetic dipoles to radiate as well, with a puzzling behavior for magnetic dipoles pointing in transversal direction [I. M. Frank, Izv. Akad. Nauk SSSR, Ser. Fiz. 6, 3 (1942)]. A discontinuous Cherenkov spectrum should appear at threshold, where the particle velocity matches the phase velocity of light. Here we deduce theoretically that light bullets [Y. Silberberg, Opt. Lett. 15, 1282 (1990)] emit an analogous radiation with exactly the same spectral discontinuity for point-like sources. For extended sources the discontinuity turns into a spectral peak at threshold. We argue that this Cherenkov radiation has been experimentally observed in the first attempt to measure Hawking radiation in optics [F. Belgiorno et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 203901 (2010)] thus giving experimental evidence for a puzzle in Cherenkov radiation instead.

gr-qc

Observation of Stimulated Hawking Radiation in Optics

The theory of Hawking radiation can be tested in laboratory analogues of black holes. We use light pulses in nonlinear fiber optics to establish artificial event horizons. Each pulse generates a moving perturbation of the refractive index via the Kerr effect. Probe light perceives this as an event horizon when its group velocity, slowed down by the perturbation, matches the speed of the pulse. We have observed in our experiment that the probe stimulates Hawking radiation, which occurs in a regime of extreme nonlinear fiber optics where positive and negative frequencies mix.

gr-qc