Quantum mechanics of hyperbolic metamaterials: Modeling of quantum time and Everett׳s “universal wavefunction”

Modern advances in transformation optics and electromagnetic metamaterials made possible experimental demonstrations of highly unusual curvilinear “optical spaces”, such as various geometries necessary for electromagnetic cloaking. Recently we demonstrated that mapping light intensity in a hyperbolic metamaterial may also model the flow of time in an effective (2+1) dimensional Minkowski spacetime. Curving such an effective spacetime creates experimental model of a toy “big bang”. Here we demonstrate that at low light levels this model may be used to emulate a fully covariant version of quantum mechanics in a (2+1) dimensional Minkowski spacetime. When quantum mechanical description is applied near the toy “big bang”, the Everett׳s “universal wave function” formalism arises naturally, in which the wave function of the model “universe” appears to be a quantum superposition of mutually orthogonal “parallel universe” states.