Colloquium with David Bermudez, Professor of Theoretical Physics, Cinvestav in Mexico City

Hawking radiation is usually defined as the radiation expected to be emitted by the event horizon of black holes. This radiation arises from the interaction of a quantum field with the classical background of curved spacetime around the black hole. This effect is often taken as a reliable prediction, even though it has not been detected, and relies on some dubious assumptions.

However, it is possible to look at this effect more broadly. What is a black hole? What are the ingredients needed to produce Hawking radiation? What if we use some other interaction instead of gravity to create curvature? What kind of horizon is required? What role do negative frequencies play in this phenomenon?

All of these questions are answered by a relatively new and growing field of study known as analog gravity, where effects usually associated with gravity are studied in other systems. The most successful ones so far are water tanks, Bose-Einstein condensates, fluids of light, and light pulses in dielectrics.

In this talk I will spend most of the time introducing the general field of analog gravity and how the analogy works for the Hawking effect. Throughout the talk I will discuss several ideas using the specific case of the optical analog.