Metric Signature Transitions in Optical Metamaterials

Abstract

We demonstrate that the extraordinary waves in indefinite metamaterials experience (- - + +) effective metric signature. During a metric signature change transition in such a metamaterial, a Minkowski space-time is "created" together with large number of particles populating this space-time. Such metamaterial models provide a table top realization of metric signature change events suggested to occur in Bose-Einstein condensates and quantum gravity theories.