The derivation and quasinormal mode spectrum of acoustic anti-de sitter black hole analogues

Abstract

Dumb holes (also known as acoustic black holes) are fluid flows which include an "acoustic horizon:" a surface, analogous to a gravitational horizon, beyond which sound may pass but never classically return. Soundwaves in these flows will therefore experience "effective geometries" which are identical to black hole spacetimes up to a conformal factor. By adjusting the parameters of the fluid flow, it is possible to create an effective geometry which is conformal to the Anti-de Sitter black hole spacetime- a geometry which has recieved a great deal of attention in recent years due to its conjectured holographic duality to Conformal Field Theories. While we would not expect an acoustic analogue of the AdS-CFT correspondence to exist, this dumb hole provides a means, at least in principle, of experimentally testing the theoretical properties of the AdS spacetime. In particular, I have calculated the quasinormal mode spectrum of this acoustic geometry.