Measuring the entanglement of analogue Hawking radiation by the density-density correlation function

Abstract

We theoretically study the entanglement of Hawking radiation pairs emitted by an analogue black hole. We find that this entanglement can be measured by the experimentally accessible density-density correlation function, vastly simplifying the measurement. We find that while the Hawking radiation exiting the black hole might be Planck-distributed, the correlations between the Hawking radiation and the partner particles has a distribution which is weaker but broader than Planckian. Thus, the high energy tail of the distribution of Hawking radiation should be entangled, whereas the low energy part should not be. This confirms a previous numerical study. The full Peres-Horodecki criterion is considered, as well as a simpler criterion in the stationary, homogeneous case. Our method applies to systems which are sufficiently cold that the thermal phonons can be neglected.