Coherently amplifying photon production from vacuum with a dense cloud of accelerating photodetectors

Abstract

The interplay between relativity and the uncertainty principle predicts the production of photons from vacuum by accelerating photodetectors. The authors propose a method to enhance photon-emission from a microwave cavity vacuum by using many photodetectors undergoing oscillatory motion within the cavity and show that when a critical detector number is exceeded, there is a coherent enhancement in the vacuum photon production, akin to Dicke superradiance.