Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 17, 2026

Induction of Microstreaming by Nonspherical Bubble Oscillations in an Acoustic Levitation System
Published on: May 9, 2021
Acoustic black hole in a stationary hydrodynamic flow of microcavity polaritons
H S Nguyen1, D Gerace2, I Carusotto3
1Laboratoire de Photonique et de Nanostructures, LPN/CNRS, Route de Nozay, 91460 Marcoussis, France.
Abstract:
We report an experimental study of superfluid hydrodynamic effects in a one-dimensional polariton fluid flowing along a laterally patterned semiconductor microcavity and hitting a micron-sized engineered defect. At high excitation power, superfluid propagation effects are observed in the polariton dynamics; in particular, a sharp acoustic horizon is formed at the defect position, separating regions of sub- and supersonic flow. Our experimental findings are quantitatively reproduced by theoretical calculations based on a generalized Gross-Pitaevskii equation. Promising perspectives to observe Hawking radiation via photon correlation measurements are illustrated.
Related Concept Videos
Standing Waves in a Cavity
Detection of Black Holes
Their closest cousins are neutron stars, which are composed almost entirely of neutrons packed against each other, making them extremely dense. A neutron star has the same mass as the Sun but its diameter is only a few kilometers. Therefore, the escape velocity from their surface is close to the speed of light.
Not until the 1960s, when the first neutron...
Potential Due to a Polarized Object
Steady, Laminar Flow in Circular Tubes
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...
Dielectric Polarization in a Capacitor

