Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 29, 2026

Cooling an Optically Trapped Ultracold Fermi Gas by Periodical Driving
Published on: March 30, 2017
Gibbons-Hawking effect in the sonic de Sitter space-time of an expanding Bose-Einstein-condensed gas
Petr O Fedichev1, Uwe R Fischer
1Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck, Institut für Theoretische Physik, Technikerstrasse 25, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria.
Abstract:
We propose an experimental scheme to observe the Gibbons-Hawking effect in the acoustic analog of a (1+1)-dimensional de Sitter universe, produced in an expanding, cigar-shaped Bose-Einstein condensate. It is shown that a two-level system created at the center of the trap, an atomic quantum dot interacting with phonons, observes a thermal Bose distribution at the de Sitter temperature.
Related Concept Videos
Space-Time Curvature and the General Theory of Relativity
This has been verified in many experiments. However, space and time are no longer absolute. Two observers moving relative to one another do not agree on the length of objects or the passage of time. The mechanics of objects based on Newton's laws of motion,...
The de Broglie Wavelength
Schwarzschild Radius and Event Horizon
The minimum speed required to launch a projectile from the surface of an object to which it is gravitationally bound so that it eventually escapes the object’s gravitational field is called the escape velocity. The escape velocity is independent of the mass of the object. Merging the idea of escape velocity with the...
Kinetic Theory of an Ideal Gas
The number of molecules in one mole is called Avogadro's number...
The Kinetic Model of Gases
Speed of Sound in Gases

