Abstract

Ultrashort laser pulse filamentation gives rise, through the Kerr effect, to a relatively large refractive index perturbation that propagates at the pulse group velocity. Adapting methods usually applied in gravitational physics, such a perturbation finds a very convenient description in terms of a curved space-time metric. This description immediately suggests the possiblity to exploit the gravitational analogy and investigate the generation of analogue Hawking radiation. This would be a completely new phenomenon in nonlinear optics, i.e. the generation of photons from the quantum vacuum due to a refractive index perturbation. We outline the details of this idea, the analogies and differences with respect to other effects and finally we give a progress report on experimental measurements of analogue Hawking radiation.

© 2010 Optical Society of America