title: Hawking radiation in sonic black holes.
abstract: I present a microscopic description of Hawking radiation in sonic black holes. A one-dimensional Fermi-degenerate liquid squeezed by a smooth barrier forms a transonic flow, a sonic analog of a black hole. The quantum treatment of the noninteracting case establishes a close relationship between sonic Hawking radiation and quantum tunneling through the barrier. Quasiparticle excitations appear at the barrier and are then radiated with a thermal distribution in exact agreement with Hawking's formula. The signature of the radiation can be found in the dynamic structure factor, which can be measured in a scattering experiment. The possibility for experimental verification of this new transport phenomenon for ultracold atoms is discussed.
authors.affiliation: School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews, North Haugh, St Andrews, Fife KY 16 9SS, United Kingdom. sg51@st-andrews.ac.uk
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Giovanazzi