Adjei, Eugene2021-01-132021-01-132021-01-132020-12-12http://hdl.handle.net/10012/16648We look at some ideas that can be found from making connections among optics, non-Hermitian dynamics and gravity. Using nonlinear optics, we demonstrate how loss can be used to make brighter sources of thermal light. Also, we simulate accelerating Unruh-DeWitt detectors in 1+1 spacetime using a nonlinear-optical setup engineered to have variable dispersion. In our last connection with gravity, we make a connection between a dynamic spacetime metric from linearized gravity and a spacetime-dependent refractive index from a linear-optical setup. From these connections with gravity, we argue that spacetime might be emergent, and that one should not quantize the metric to find a quantum gravity theory. Instead, we propose that gravity might have a gauge theory description and that the problem of quantizing gravity is equivalent to that of quantizing a gauge field. A gauge theory of gravity will make it possible to include this interaction into the Standard Model, and this inclusion may have implications for physics beyond the Standard Model.enGravitational refractive indexSimulation of Unruh-DeWitt detectorsNon-Hermitian opticsDoctoral Thesis