Probing Penrose-type singularities in sonic black holes

Abstract

Addressing the general question whether Penrose singularities physically exist inside black holes, we investigate the problem in the context of an analogue system, a flowing laboratory liquid, for which the governing equations are at least in principle known to all relevant scales, and in all regions of the effective spacetime. We suggest to probe the physical phenomena taking place close to the singularity in the interior of a $2+1$D analogue black hole arising from a polytropic, inviscid, irrotational, and axisymmetric steady flow, and propose to this end an experimental setup in a Bose-Einstein condensate. Our study provides concrete evidence, for a well understood dynamical system, that the Einstein equations are not necessary for a singularity to form, demonstrating that Penrose-type spacetime singularities can potentially also exist in non-Einsteinian theories of gravity. Finally, we demonstrate how the singularity is physically avoided in our proposed laboratory setup.