Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Waterloo have proposed instead
The Urnu effect was first predicted by a physicistWilliam Unruh of the University of British Columbia in 1976. The theory suggests that a body accelerating in a vacuum should feel the presence of warm radiation. As the researchers from MIT note, this effect is associated with quantum interactions between accelerated matter and quantum fluctuations in the vacuum of empty space.
The authors of the new study say that the complexityin confirming the Unruh effect is associated with an extremely low probability of seeing it. This, according to scientists, requires either a huge effort or a very long period of observation (possibly billions of years). For example, to produce a glow warm enough to be measured by detectors, an atom-sized body must be accelerated to the speed of light in less than a millionth of a second.
"To see this effect in a short spantime, you need incredible acceleration, says Vivishek Sudhir, co-author of the study at MIT. “And if you use reasonable acceleration, you have to wait a huge amount of time - more than the age of the universe - to see a measurable effect.”
Physicists have proposed using light toto increase vacuum fluctuations. The addition of photons proportionally enhances all phenomena that will occur during the experiment. The key difficulty of this approach was that along with the Unruh effect, all other effects are also enhanced.
To solve this problem, researchersproposed to influence the trajectory of the particle. Theoretically, they showed that if an atom is accelerated in a stream of photons along a specific trajectory, then all side effects will be invisible to the observer.
When we stimulate the Unruh effect, at the same time we also stimulate ordinary or resonant effects, but we show that by changing the particle's trajectory we can essentially disable these effects.
Barbara Shoda, study co-author at the University of Waterloo
Physicists plan to build a particle acceleratorlaboratory sizes to accelerate the electron to a speed close to the speed of light, which they will further increase with the help of a laser beam. Now scientists are working on finding a way to change the trajectory of the electron.
“Now at least we know that in ourlife has a chance to see this effect,” says Sudhir. “This is a complex experiment, and there is no guarantee that we will be able to carry it out, but this idea is our closest hope.”
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