In this paper we study the effects of quantum scalar field vacuum fluctuations on scalar test particles in an analog model for the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker spatially flat geometry. In this scenario, the cases with one and two perfectly reflecting plane boundaries are considered as well as the case without a boundary. We find that the particles can undergo Brownian motion with a nonzero mean squared velocity induced by the quantum vacuum fluctuations due to the time-dependent background and the presence of the boundaries. Typical singularities which appear due to the presence of the boundaries in flat spacetime can be naturally regularized for an asymptotically bounded expanding scale function. Thus, shifts in the velocity could be, at least in principle, detectable experimentally. The possibility to implement this observation in an analog cosmological model by the use of a Bose-Einstein condensate is also discussed.

• Received 23 March 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.95.085020