Gravitational dynamics in Bose Einstein condensates

Understand

Analogue models for gravity intend to provide a framework where matter and gravity, as well as their intertwined dynamics, emerge from degrees of freedom that have a priori nothing to do with what we call gravity or matter.

• Bose Einstein condensates (BEC) are a natural example of analogue model since one can identify matter propagating on a (pseudo-Riemannian) metric with collective excitations above the condensate of atoms.
• However, until now, a description of the "analogue gravitational dynamics" for such model was missing.
• We show here that in a BEC system with massive quasi-particles, the gravitational dynamics can be encoded in a modified (semi-classical) Poisson equation.