Simulations of Black Hole Oscillations

Black holes are objects of immense research interest because they occupy a regime in which both general relativity and quantum theory play an essential role in our descriptions. The promise of black hole physics is then as a means to improve our understanding of how these two theories come together. The fact that astrophysical black holes are inaccessible to experiment has thus driven the study of so-called 'analogue' black holes, which may be constructed in the laboratory.
The present research proposal will involve the theoretical investigation of a (1+1)-dimensional analogue black hole in an optical fibre. This setup produces analogue black (and white) holes by creating fibre-optical solitons which provide subluminal (and superluminal) regions. Prior work has already considered this novel experimental setup in its connection with analogue Hawking radiation, which is associated to the existence of analogue event horizons in the fibre.
More specifically, the objective of the present research proposal would be to analyze the aforementioned setup in order to explore the phenomenon of analogue black hole oscillations. If a black holes or an analogue black hole is perturbed, then it is found to relax by the emission of characteristic waves, whose frequency spectrum is independent of the initial perturbation. These oscillations have been said to provide a "finger-print" of the black hole. It is thought that a detailed theoretical investigation into the behaviour of these analogues in the quantum regime, by way of analogue oscillations, may assist in the development of ideas concerning the quantum behaviour of astrophysical black holes.