Experimental model of topological defects in Minkowski space-time based on disordered ferrofluid: magnetic monopoles, cosmic strings and the space-time cloak

Igor I Smolyaninov; Vera N Smolyaninova; Alexei I Smolyaninov

doi:10.1098/rsta.2014.0360

Experimental model of topological defects in Minkowski space-time based on disordered ferrofluid: magnetic monopoles, cosmic strings and the space-time cloak

Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci. 2015 Aug 28;373(2049):20140360. doi: 10.1098/rsta.2014.0360.

Authors

Igor I Smolyaninov¹, Vera N Smolyaninova², Alexei I Smolyaninov³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA smoly@umd.edu.
² Department of Physics, Astronomy and Geosciences, Towson University, 8000 York Road, Towson, MD 21252, USA.
³ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.

Abstract

In the presence of an external magnetic field, cobalt nanoparticle-based ferrofluid forms a self-assembled hyperbolic metamaterial. The wave equation, which describes propagation of extraordinary light inside the ferrofluid, exhibits 2+1 dimensional Lorentz symmetry. The role of time in the corresponding effective three-dimensional Minkowski space-time is played by the spatial coordinate directed along the periodic nanoparticle chains aligned by the magnetic field. Here, we present a microscopic study of point, linear, planar and volume defects of the nanoparticle chain structure and demonstrate that they may exhibit strong similarities with such Minkowski space-time defects as magnetic monopoles, cosmic strings and the recently proposed space-time cloaks. Experimental observations of such defects are described.

Keywords: ferrofluid; hyperbolic metamaterial; space–time defects.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.