Phonon background versus analogue Hawking radiation in Bose-Einstein condensates

Abstract

We determine the feasibility of detecting analogue Hawking radiation in a Bose-Einstein condensate in the presence of atom loss induced heating. We find that phonons created by three-body losses overshadow those due to analogue Hawking radiation. To overcome this problem, three-body losses may have to be suppressed, for example as proposed by Search et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 92 140401 (2004)]. The reduction of losses to a few percent of their normal rate is typically sufficient to suppress the creation of loss phonons on the time scale of a fast analogue Hawking phonon detection.