Vorticity in analog gravity

Abstract

In the analog gravity framework, the acoustic disturbances in a moving fluid can be described by an equation of motion identical to a relativistic scalar massless field propagating in curved space-time. This description is possible only when the fluid under consideration is barotropic, inviscid, and irrotational. In this case, the propagation of the perturbations is governed by an acoustic metric that depends algebrically on the local speed of sound, density, and the background flow velocity, the latter assumed to be vorticity-free. In this work we provide a straightforward extension in order to go beyond the irrotational constraint. Using a charged—relativistic and nonrelativistic—Bose–Einstein condensate as a physical system, we show that in the low-momentum limit and performing the eikonal approximation we can derive a d’Alembertian equation of motion for the charged phonons where the emergent acoustic metric depends on flow velocity in the presence of vorticity.