title: Gibbons-Hawking effect in the sonic de Sitter space-time of an expanding Bose-Einstein-condensed gas.
abstract: We propose an experimental scheme to observe the Gibbons-Hawking effect in the acoustic analog of a (1+1)-dimensional de Sitter universe, produced in an expanding, cigar-shaped Bose-Einstein condensate. It is shown that a two-level system created at the center of the trap, an atomic quantum dot interacting with phonons, observes a thermal Bose distribution at the de Sitter temperature.
authors.affiliation: Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck, Institut für Theoretische Physik, Technikerstrasse 25, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria.
authors.forename: Petr O
authors.initials: PO
authors.lastname: Fedichev
authors.forename: Uwe R
authors.initials: UR
authors.lastname: Fischer