Reflections on moving mirrors

A field theory constructed on a space with a moving boundary illustrates many of the physical characteristics of Hawking radiation from black holes. We review this analogy with a number of new refinements. We construct a model in which the Bogoliubov transformation, which is induced by the moving boundary, can be computed explicitly. This model is used to discuss correlations in the final state of the quantum field. This discussion can, in turn, serve as the basis for an investigation into Hawking’s proposal that black holes can induce the evolution of quantum-mechanical pure states into mixed states.