Mechanical cosmology: simulating scalar fluctuations in expanding Universes using synthetic mechanical lattices

Abstract

Inspired by recent advances in observational astrophysics and continued explorations in the field of analog gravity, we discuss the prospect of simulating models of cosmology within the context of synthetic mechanical lattice experiments. We focus on the physics of expanding Universe scenarios described by the Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) metric. Specifically, quantizing scalar fluctuations in a background FLRW spacetime leads to a quadratic bosonic Hamiltonian with temporally varying pair production terms. Here we present a mapping that provides a one-to-one correspondence between these classes of cosmology models and feedback-coupled mechanical oscillators. As proof-of-principle, we then perform experiments on a synthetic mechanical lattice composed of such oscillators. We simulate two different FLRW expansion scenarios with Universes dominated by vacuum energy and matter and discuss our experimental results.

7 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (18)

• The James Webb Space Telescope
• Topological Origin of Non-Hermitian Skin Effects
• General Relativity in Electrical Engineering
• Gibbons-Hawking Effect in the Sonic de Sitter Space-Time of an Expanding Bose-Einstein-Condensed Gas
• Quantum simulation of cosmic inflation in two-component Bose-Einstein condensates
• "Cosmological" quasiparticle production in harmonically trapped superfluid gases
• Analogue model of a FRW universe in Bose-Einstein condensates: Application of the classical field method
• The next generation of analogue gravity experiments
• Minimal decoherence from inflation
• Analogue Cosmological Particle Creation: Quantum Correlations in Expanding Bose Einstein Condensates
• Complex modes in unstable quadratic bosonic forms
• Coherent inflationary dynamics for Bose-Einstein condensates crossing a quantum critical point
• Quasiparticle universes in Bose-Einstein condensates
• Experimental observation of the Yang-Lee quantum criticality in open systems
• Cosmology in the laboratory: an analogy between hyperbolic metamaterials and the Milne universe
• Expanding ring-shaped Bose-Einstein condensates as analogs of cosmological models: Analytical characterization of the inflationary dynamics
• Entanglement in an expanding toroidal Bose-Einstein condensate
• Manipulation of Weyl Points in Reciprocal and Nonreciprocal Mechanical Lattices