Realization of a sonic black hole analogue in a Bose-Einstein condensate

Understand

We have created an analogue of a black hole in a Bose-Einstein condensate.

• In this sonic black hole, sound waves, rather than light waves, cannot escape the event horizon.
• A step-like potential accelerates the flow of the condensate to velocities which cross and exceed the speed of sound by an order of magnitude.
• The Landau critical velocity is therefore surpassed.