Editing Unruh effect (section)

== Unruh radiation ==
Although Unruh's prediction that an accelerating detector would see a thermal bath is not controversial, the interpretation of the transitions in the detector in the non-accelerating frame is.{{cn|date=September 2022}}

It is widely, although not universally, believed that each transition in the detector is accompanied by the emission of a particle, and that this particle will propagate to infinity and be seen as '''Unruh radiation'''. Smolyaninov claims that it has already been observed,<ref>
{{cite journal
 |last1=Smolyaninov |first1=I. I.
 |year=2008
 |title=Photoluminescence from a gold nanotip in an accelerated reference frame
 |journal=[[Physics Letters A]]
 |volume=372 |issue=47 |pages=7043–7045
 |arxiv=cond-mat/0510743
 |bibcode=2008PhLA..372.7043S
 |doi=10.1016/j.physleta.2008.10.061
 |s2cid=119050574
 }}</ref> while O'Connell and Ford claim that it is not emitted at all.<ref>
{{cite journal
 |last1=Ford |first1=G. W.
 |last2=O'Connell |first2=R. F.
 |year=2005
 |title=Is there Unruh radiation?
 |journal=[[Physics Letters A]]
 |volume=350 |issue=1–2
 |pages=17–26
 |arxiv=quant-ph/0509151
 |bibcode = 2006PhLA..350...17F
 |doi=10.1016/j.physleta.2005.09.068
|s2cid=119352739
 }}</ref> While these skeptics accept that an accelerating object thermalizes at the Unruh temperature, they do not believe that this leads to the emission of photons, arguing that the emission and absorption rates of the accelerating particle are balanced.