Zel'dovich-Starobinsky Effect in Atomic Bose-Einstein Condensates: Analogy to Kerr Black Hole

Abstract

We consider circular motion of a heavy object in an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) at $T=0{\rm K}$. Even if the linear velocity of the object is smaller than the Landau critical velocity, the object may radiate quasiparticles and thus experience the quantum friction. The radiation process is similar to Zel'dovich-Starobinskii (ZS) effect -- the radiation by a rotating black hole. This analogy emerges when one introduces the effective acoustic metric for quasiparticles. In the rotating frame this metric has an ergosurface, which is similar to the ergosurface in the metric of a rotating black hole. In a finite size BEC, the quasiparticle creation takes place when the ergosurface is within the condensate and occurs via quantum tunneling from the object into the ergoregion. The dependence of the radiation rate on the position of the ergosurface is investigated.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures,submitted to JLT