Back in the 1970s Stephen Hawking of Cambridge University in the UK made the theoretical discovery that small black holes are not "completely black". Instead, a black hole emits radiation with a well defined temperature that is proportional to the gravitational force at its surface. The finding uncovered a deep connection between gravity, quantum mechanics and thermodynamics. Later, Bill Unruh of the University of British Columbia in Canada proposed that quantum particles should emit thermal radiation in a similar way when they are accelerated.
Now, Pisin Chen of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and Toshi Tajima of the University of Texas at Austin in the US have suggested that it should be possible to detect the Unruh radiation emitted by electrons that are accelerated by high-intensity lasers (Phys. Rev. Lett. 1999 83 256).
Haret Rosu from the Universidad de Guanajuato, Mexico explains their proposal in the October issue of Physics World magazine.