Acoustic black holes
Abstract
Description
Acoustic propagation in a moving fluid provides a conceptually clean and powerful analogy for understanding black hole physics. As a teaching tool, the analogy is useful for introducing students to both General Relativity and fluid mechanics. As a research tool, the analogy helps clarify what aspects of the physics are kinematics and what aspects are dynamics. In particular, Hawking radiation is a purely kinematical effect, whereas black hole entropy is intrinsically dynamical. Finally, I discuss the fact that with present technology acoustic Hawking radiation is almost experimentally testable.
10 pages, uses Springer-Verlag macro package. To appear in the Proceedings of the 1998 Peniscola Summer School on Particle Physics and Cosmology. (Springer-Verlag)
10 pages, uses Springer-Verlag macro package. To appear in the Proceedings of the 1998 Peniscola Summer School on Particle Physics and Cosmology. (Springer-Verlag)