Using Berry's phase to detect the Unruh effect at lower accelerations

Abstract

We show that a detector acquires a Berry phase due to its motion in spacetime. The phase is different in the inertial and accelerated case as a direct consequence of the Unruh effect. We exploit this fact to design a novel method to measure the Unruh effect. Surprisingly, the effect is detectable for accelerations 10^9 times smaller than previous proposals sustained only for times of nanoseconds.