A black hole is a place from which even light cannot escape. But quantum theory says it still glows faintly. This glow is called Hawking radiation. In space, it's impossible to spot: it's too faint. So physicists build models of black holes from ordinary materials. For example, from a chain of quantum spins — tiny magnetic arrows that obey the laws of the quantum world.

In the new work, they took such a chain and abruptly changed its properties, as if a star were instantly squeezed into a point. An analog of the event horizon emerged: a boundary beyond which information does not return. Then the scientists looked at what radiation the system emits. It turned out to be almost like that of a real black hole — thermal, with a characteristic temperature. But there are differences: the spectrum is slightly distorted, as if light passes through a translucent mirror.

To understand how accurately the model mimics a black hole, the scientists attached a sensor to the chain — a single qubit, the quantum analog of a bit. In the weak coupling regime, the sensor feels only the local temperature, like a thermometer at the surface. But if the coupling is too strong, the sensor 'drowns' in the overall noise and can no longer distinguish the signal from the horizon. This is an important practical takeaway: to see Hawking radiation, you need to tune the measuring device very carefully.

Such experiments are a bridge between the world of quantum mechanics and gravity. They allow us to test ideas that cannot be tested with real black holes. And perhaps, one day, they will help us understand how space and time work at the deepest level.