Though it is still a big challenge to unify general relativity and quantum mechanics in modern physics, the theory of quantum field related with the gravitational effect has been well developed and some striking phenomena are predicted, such as Hawking radiation. However, the direct measurement of these quantum effects under general relativity is far beyond present experiment techniques. Fortunately, the emulation of general relativity phenomena in the laboratory has become accessible in recent years. However, up to now, these simulations are limited either in classical regime or in flat space whereas quantum simulation related with general relativity is rarely involved. Here we propose and experimentally demonstrate a quantum evolution of fermions in close proximity to an artificial black hole on a photonic chip. We successfully observe the acceleration behavior, quantum creation, and evolution of a fermion pair near the event horizon: a single-photon wave packet with positive energy escapes from the black hole while negative energy is captured. Our extensible platform not only provides a route to access quantum effects related with general relativity, but also has the potentiality to investigate quantum gravity in future.

中文翻译：

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事件视界附近粒子对产生的量子模拟

尽管在现代物理学中统一广义相对论和量子力学仍然是一个很大的挑战，但与引力效应相关的量子场理论已经得到了很好的发展，并预测了一些惊人的现象，例如霍金辐射。然而，在广义相对论下对这些量子效应的直接测量远远超出了目前的实验技术。幸运的是，近年来在实验室中模拟广义相对论现象已经变得可行。然而，到目前为止，这些模拟无论是在经典领域还是在平坦空间中都受到限制，而很少涉及与广义相对论相关的量子模拟。在这里，我们提出并通过实验证明了费米子在光子芯片上靠近人造黑洞的量子演化。我们成功地观察到了事件视界附近费米子对的加速行为、量子产生和演化：一个具有正能量的单光子波包从黑洞中逸出，同时捕获了负能量。我们的可扩展平台不仅提供了访问与广义相对论相关的量子效应的途径，而且有可能在未来研究量子引力。