Astrophysics and BECs

Abstract

The physics of dilute gas BECs can potentially tell us about astrophysically interesting phenomena. For example, a close analogue of black hole Hawking radiation has been predicted from supersonic transitions in BEC flows. We find that three-body loss severely limits the Hawking temperature that can be achieved in BECs, independent of the detailed implementation of the sonic horizon. Also, a candidate for the galactic halos of dark matter are BECs of the hypothetical elementary particles called axions. We discuss the contributions that theoretical and experimental quantum atom optics can make towards understanding such astrophysics.