Fiber-Optic Event Horizon Mimics Black Hole [Slideshow]

Researchers hope to detect faint radiation emanating from a new laboratory version of a black hole event horizon

MAKE YOUR OWN WHITE HOLE Simulating the event horizon of a white hole—an inside-out black hole that permits no light to enter—is as simple as letting water from the tap pour onto a flat surface, as shown here. Inside the ring of water waves is the so-called hydraulic jump, a smooth area where water moves faster than the speed of the waves, hence no waves can enter this region. Circular waves form as the inner water slows to wave speed. iStockPhoto
HAWKING RADIATION Hawking Radiation is the faint glow theorized by physicist Stephen Hawking to stream from a black hole due to pair creation, the simultaneous birth of twin particles of light, near the event horizon. When one member of the pair is born outside the all-consuming event horizon while its partner is born inside, the lucky outside particle scoots away. Image courtesy of Ulf Leonhardt
"FERRARI LASER" To have any hope of detecting faint radiation emanating from an analog of a black hole event horizon in a new laser-based method, researchers will have to create short, high-intensity laser pulses shaped like a shark fin. "It's not going to be easy," says physicist Ulf Leonhardt of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, who developed the new system along with his colleagues. They hope this high-end laser, which fires micrometer-size bursts of red light, will light the way forward. Image courtesy of Ulf Leonhardt
PRISM The supercontinuum output of the microstructured fiber dispersed by the prism (right) onto the screen (left). The prism separates the colors of light. Image courtesy of Chris Kuklewicz
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OVER THE HORIZON Experimental setup for measuring the shortening, or blue-shifting, of an infrared beam's wavelength at an event horizon in a spool of optical fiber (blue circle added for clarity). Colored lines show the paths of incoming laser pulses (red), the infrared probe light (green) and a beam for probing the mixture of the two (magenta). Image courtesy of Chris Kuklewicz
SUPERCONTINUUM SPECTRUM Detail of the broad spectrum, or supercontinuum, light output from a microstructured fiber used to create an analog of a black hole's event horizon. Dispersed by a prism and projected onto the screen, the light contains the full rainbow. Image courtesy of Chris Kuklewicz
EVENT HORIZON Researchers have reproduced an event horizon similar in principle to ones found around black holes by shining laser pulses down a microstructured, or microscopically patterned, optical fiber, shown here. The fiber converts laser light into a broad spectrum of visible light, or supercontinuum. Image courtesy of Chris Kuklewicz

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