Aharonov–Bohm effect in a draining bathtub vortex

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We study planar waves in a circulating, draining fluid flow, which: (i) exhibit an analogue of the Aharonov–Bohm (AB) effect in Quantum Mechanics; (ii) obey a Klein–Gordon equation on an ‘effective spacetime’ which resembles the Kerr spacetime of General Relativity; and (iii) may be observed in the laboratory using gravity waves in a shallow basin. We describe a modified AB effect which depends on two dimensionless parameters, associated with the circulation α and draining β rates; we call this the ‘αβ effect’. We show that the αβ effect is inherently asymmetric even in the low-frequency limit, and that it leads to novel interference patterns which carry the signature of both rotation and absorption.