Black holes are among the most extreme objects in the universe, regions of space where gravity is so powerful that not even light can escape. Stephen Hawking predicted that black holes slowly radiate energy and eventually evaporate, while Roger Penrose showed that rotating black holes harbour a region just outside the event horizon, the ergosphere, where energy can be extracted from the black hole itself. When waves rather than particles do the extracting, the effect is called superradiance.

Yet despite everything we know, some of the most fundamental black hole physics remains out of reach. Telescopes like the Lovell Telescope have revealed black holes in extraordinary detail, their shadows, their mergers, the gravitational waves they send rippling across space. But what if we could study them in the laboratory?

Flowing fluids, from ordinary water to exotic quantum liquids cooled to within a fraction of a degree of absolute zero, can behave exactly like the space surrounding a black hole. When flow exceeds the speed of the waves on its surface, those waves cannot return. That point of no return is an event horizon, and the physics that follows is black hole physics.

As part of Jodrell Bank’s Curious Universe series, Prof Silke Weinfurtner will show how laboratory black holes make it possible to study Hawking radiation, superradiance, and the conditions for a black hole bomb. After this talk, you may never look at your bathtub quite the same way again!

About Silke Weinfurtner

Silke Weinfurtner is a Professor of Applied Quantum Technologies at the University of Manchester, a Leverhulme Research Leaders Fellow, and Co-Chair of the CERN Quantum Technology Initiative. She led the UK-wide Quantum Simulators for Fundamental Physics network funded by UKRI, and builds experiments using superfluid helium cooled to a fraction of a degree above absolute zero. She also co-curated Cosmic Titans, an art-science exhibition now showing at Jodrell Bank, exploring black holes and the quantum universe.