Study of Effective 2+1 Dimensional Gravity in Ferrofluid‐Based Hyperbolic Metamaterials

Abstract

AbstractRecent theoretical and experimental work demonstrated that nonlinear optics of ferrofluid‐based hyperbolic metamaterials exhibit very unusual spatiotemporal dynamics. Here a detailed theoretical and experimental study of mutual interactions of individual self‐focused optical filaments inside this metamaterial is reported. In agreement with theoretical expectations, the observed mutual interactions of individual filaments exhibit strong similarities with general relativity in 2+1 dimensions, which predicts that these interactions must have predominantly non‐Newtonian topological character. This observation is important since 2+1‐dimensional gravity is an exactly solvable theory even in the quantum gravity limit.