Applications of Spacetime Quantum Metasurfaces to Simulating Hawking Radiation and Black Hole Event Horizons

Hawking theorized that black holes could evaporate through the emission of real photons from the excitation of the quantum vacuum near the event horizon. Specifically, the difference in the creation and annihilation operators of both the quantized scalar and electromagnetic fields near the event horizon and past null infinity are realized as the creation of real photons from vacuum excitations. It was shown this process could be simulated by a moving mirror on an asymptotically null trajectory. The emission of photons from the vacuum via the moving mirror would model the same mechanism of photon production predicted by Hawking. It was then proposed that Hawking radiation could also be simulated by modulating the optical properties of a material (i.e. “optical event horizons”). However, achieving this requires a great deal of control over the modulations within the material. Examples include the use of diffraction gratings synthetically moving at trans-luminal velocities and the use of a superconducting transmission line though the use of a SQUID.

Spacetime Quantum Metasurfaces (STQMs) produce unique quantum and optical properties through the control of both spatial and temporal modulations. These include the application of electrical bias modulating the index of refraction, magnetic field modulations, optical modulations, etc. This allows for the generation of unique physical phenomena including the generation of photon pairs from vacuum excitations. STQMs also allow for the steering and control over the quantum properties of the output/emitted photons. These features could provide methods for simulating the emission of Hawking photons and the use of such emissions to probe deeper into the quantum aspects of curved spacetime. In this talk I discuss how the unique quantum properties of STQMs could provide a novel and unique platform for the simulation of Hawking radiation and other quantum effects predicted in curved spacetimes.