A Hawking radiation analogue in your kitchen sink?

Stefan Dangel (UZH)

Opening the faucet of your kitchen sink seems to be the most simple analogue gravity experiment: The circular flow pattern corresponds to a white hole horizon, which cannot be penetrated by surface waves from the outside. Theoretically, the only important difference between an astrophysical black hole and such a hydrodynamic model is the existence of dispersion in the latter. While the Hawking radiation of a real black hole will probably never be observed, we discuss the possibility of measuring its classical analogue using a little “kitchen sink” experiment.