Dumb holes: universality or analogy? What makes an analogue experiment an analogue experiment?

Analogue experiments have been promoted as means of potentially confirming theoretical predictions about systems that are inaccessible under the relevant conditions. A focus has been on the example of potential confirmation of Hawking radiation in black holes via analogue ‘dumb hole’ experiments in fluids. Dardashti (The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 68:55–89, 2017; Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 67:1–11, 2019) present arguments in support of this possibility, while Crowther (Synthese (Suppl 16):1–26, 2019) is critical that these arguments suffice. The latter analysis utilises the characterisation of analogue experiments given by the former two papers, upon which analogue experiments are supposed to differ from both conventional experiments as well as analogies. The defining feature was taken, by Crowther (Synthese (Suppl 16):1–26, 2019), to be the inaccessibility of the target system. This, however, not only rules out the possibility of such experiments being confirmatory, but also conflicts with the common belief that conventional scientific experiments can aim to provide knowledge about inaccessible target systems. So, if not inaccessibility of their target systems, what defines an analogue experiment? Here, I argue that there is nothing special about analogue experiments: Either, they are conventional experiments, or they are material analogies. Nevertheless, there remain particular challenges for the case of confirming Hawking radiation via dumb hole experiments, owing to inaccessibility issues.