Quantum quenches, sonic horizons and the Hawking radiation in a class of exactly solvable models

Abstract: Taking advantage of the known exact mapping of the one-dimensional Hard Core Bose (HCB) fluid onto a non-interacting spinless fermion gas, we examine in full detail a thought experiment on cold atoms confined in a quasi-one-dimensional trap, in order to investigate the emergence of the analogue Hawking radiation. The dynamics of a gas of interacting bosons impinging on an external potential is exactly tracked up to the reach of a stationary state. Under few strict conditions on the experimental parameters, the stationary state is shown to be described asymptotically by a thermal distribution, precisely at the expected (analogue) Hawking temperature. However, we find that in most experimental conditions the emerging `Hawking-like radiation' is not thermal. This analysis provides a novel many-body microscopic interpretation of the Hawking mechanism, together with useful limits and conditions for the design of future experiments in Bose-Einstein condensates.