Analogue models of general relativity have recently been considered with great interest by the scientific community. They connect branches of physics as different as gravitation, condensed matter physics, electrodynamics, acoustics, and quantum field theory. One of the main expectations about such models lies on the possibility of testing in laboratory some aspects of quantum field theory in curved spacetimes. For instance, it seems to be possible to probe the existence of Hawking radiation by means of analogue models in the context of certain condensed matter systems. We briefly report the present day status of this topic of research. Some specific models are considered, particularly those presenting analogue event horizons as solutions. The issue of thermal emission (analogue Hawking radiation) is also discussed.
