Critical opalescence in hyperbolic metamaterials

Hyperbolic metamaterials in which the dielectric component exhibits critical opalescence have been considered. It appears that fluctuations of the effective refractive index in these materials are strongly enhanced and so 'virtual electromagnetic black holes' may appear as a result of these fluctuations. Therefore, the behaviour of 'optical space' inside hyperbolic metamaterials looks somewhat similar to the behaviour of real physical space-time on the Planck scale