Spinning gyroscope in an acoustic black hole: precession effects and observational aspects

The exact precession frequency of a freely-precessing test gyroscope is derived for a 2 + 1 dimensional rotating acoustic black hole analogue spacetime, without making the somewhat unrealistic assumption that the gyroscope is static. We show that, as a consequence, the gyroscope crosses the acoustic ergosphere of the black hole with a finite precession frequency, provided its angular velocity lies within a particular range determined by the stipulation that the Killing vector is timelike over the ergoregion. Specializing to the ‘Draining Sink’ acoustic black hole, the precession frequency is shown to diverge near the acoustic horizon, instead of the vicinity of the ergosphere. In the limit of an infinitesimally small rotation of the acoustic black hole, the gyroscope still precesses with a finite frequency, thus confirming a behaviour analogous to geodetic precession in a physical non-rotating spacetime like a Schwarzschild black hole. Possible experimental approaches to detect acoustic spin precession and measure the consequent precession frequency, are discussed.