Analogue black holes for light rays in static dielectrics

Abstract

Propagation of light in nonlinear materials is here studied in the regime of the geometrical optics. It is shown that a spherically symmetric medium at rest with some specific dielectric properties can be used to produce an exact analogue model for a class of space-times which includes spherically symmetric and static black hole solutions. The optical model here presented can be a useful tool to reproduce in laboratory the behavior of optical null geodesics near a compact object with an observable gravitational Schwarzschild radius.