Emulation of General Relativistic Effects in Optical Settings

by Rivka Bekenstein

at Special seminar

Mon, 20 Jun 2016, 14:00
Physics building (#54) room 207

Abstract

In 1916 Albert Einstein published the General theory of Relativity GR predicting a plethora of exciting gravitational phenomena Some of these have been directly observed such as the deflection of light by the sun However many of GR s predictions still elude observation to this day Consequently mathematically analogous physical systems were suggested as platforms for emulation experiments among which optical systems are prime candidates The talk will cover my work on gravitational effects with optical wavepackets in linear and nonlinear optical systems First we use a nonlocal nonlinear optical system that is mathematically equivalent to the Newton Schr dinger model commonly used to describe the inherently nonlinear dynamics of gravitational systems We use this setting to demonstrate gravitational phenomena in tabletop experiments: the wave dynamics of the interaction of a quantum wavefunction with a massive star Such wavefunction interact in the curved space that they themselves induce displaying complex nonlinear dynamics arising from the interplay between diffraction interference and the emulated gravitational effects Finally we study the behavior of wavepackets on curved surfaces and design micro sized three dimensional optical structures suggesting new photonics applications by controlling the curvature of space

Created on 20-06-2016 by Bar Lev, Yevgeny (ybarlev)
Updaded on 20-06-2016 by Bar Lev, Yevgeny (ybarlev)