Boiron D, Fabbri A, Larré P-É, Pavloff N, Westbrook C I, Ziń P
Laboratoire Charles Fabry, Institut d'Optique-CNRS-Univ. Paris-Sud, 2 Avenue Augustin Fresnel, 91127 Palaiseau, France.
Centro Studi e Ricerche E. Fermi, Piazza del Viminale 1, 00184 Roma, Italy.
Phys Rev Lett. 2015 Jul 10;115(2):025301. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.025301. Epub 2015 Jul 6.
We consider a sonic analog of a black hole realized in the one-dimensional flow of a Bose-Einstein condensate. Our theoretical analysis demonstrates that one- and two-body momentum distributions accessible by present-day experimental techniques provide clear direct evidence (i) of the occurrence of a sonic horizon, (ii) of the associated acoustic Hawking radiation, and (iii) of the quantum nature of the Hawking process. The signature of the quantum behavior persists even at temperatures larger than the chemical potential.