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Proposal for Observing the Unruh Effect using Classical Electrodynamics
Gabriel Cozzella1, André G S Landulfo2, George E A Matsas1
1Instituto de Física Teórica, Universidade Estadual Paulista, Rua Dr. Bento Teobaldo Ferraz, 271, 01140-070 São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
Abstract:
Although the Unruh effect can be rigorously considered as well tested as free quantum field theory itself, it would be nice to provide experimental evidence of its existence. This is not easy because the linear acceleration needed to reach a temperature 1 K is of order 10^{20} m/s^{2}. Here, we propose a simple experiment reachable under present technology whose result may be directly interpreted in terms of the Unruh thermal bath. Instead of waiting for experimentalists to perform it, we use standard classical electrodynamics to anticipate its output and fulfill our goal.
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