Backreaction in an Analogue Black Hole Experiment.

Analogue models of gravity, particularly fluid mechanical analogues, have been very successful in mimicking the behavior of fields around black holes. However, hydrodynamic black holes are externally driven systems whose effective mass and angular momentum are set by experimental parameters, and, as such, no appreciable internal backreaction is expected to take place. On the contrary, we show using a rotating draining vortex flow that a fluid system of finite size responds to the presence of waves on timescales much longer than the wave dynamics, which leads to a significant global change in the total mass of our system.

Interferometric Unruh Detectors for Bose-Einstein Condensates.

The Unruh effect predicts a thermal response for an accelerated detector moving through the vacuum. Here we propose an interferometric scheme to observe an analogue of the circular Unruh effect using a localized laser coupled to a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). Quantum fluctuations in the condensate are governed by an effective relativistic field theory, and as demonstrated, the coupled laser field acts as an effective Unruh-DeWitt detector thereof.

Dynamics landscape for acoustic superradiance.

We analyse the behaviour of acoustic vortex beams interacting with rotating, fluid-saturated porous materials. Regions of the parameter space that exhibit distinct dynamical features are identified, with a focus on features that are relevant to the characterization of rotational superradiance. We discuss the similarities and differences between two recent proposals to observe acoustic superradiance with rotating, air-saturated sound absorbers.