Abstract
Many gravitational phenomena that lie at the core of our understanding of the Universe have not yet been directly observed. An example in this sense is the boson star that has been proposed as an alternative to some compact objects currently interpreted as being black holes. In the weak field limit, these stars are governed by the Newton–Schrodinger equation. Here we present an optical system that, under appropriate conditions, identically reproduces such equation in two dimensions. A rotating boson star is experimentally and numerically modelled by an optical beam propagating through a medium with a positive thermal nonlinearity and is shown to oscillate in time while also stable up to relatively high densities. For higher densities, instabilities lead to an apparent breakup of the star, yet coherence across the whole structure is maintained. These results show that optical analogues can be used to shed new light on inaccessible gravitational objects.
Highlights
Many gravitational phenomena that lie at the core of our understanding of the Universe have not yet been directly observed
We have shown that, when appropriate attention is paid to boundary conditions, a medium with positive thermal–optical nonlinearity may provide a testbed for simulations of the Newton–Schrodinger equation (NSE)
Using optical vortex beams we are able to map the propagation of the wave function along the optical axis to the time evolution of a rotating boson star
Summary
Many gravitational phenomena that lie at the core of our understanding of the Universe have not yet been directly observed. Instabilities lead to an apparent breakup of the star, yet coherence across the whole structure is maintained These results show that optical analogues can be used to shed new light on inaccessible gravitational objects. Gravity is inherently a nonlinear and nonlocal, that is, long-range, interaction This has been used to draw an analogy between gravitational attraction and light-trapping in the wake of optical solitons[9]. Another notable example of the connection between gravity and optics was recently demonstrated using an optical system based on a thermally excited medium, which allows one to reproduce the physics of the Newton–Schrodinger equation (NSE)[10]. À ab jEj2; k ð4Þ where b 1⁄4 qn/qT is the medium thermo-optic coefficient, k is the thermal conductivity and a the absorption coefficient
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