Quantum and Classical Two-photon Interference of Single Photons with Ultralong Coherence Time
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2024
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| _version_ | 1866908676048027648 |
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| author | Wang, Manman Li, Yanfeng Liu, Hanqing Ni, Haiqiao Niu, Zhichuan Wei, Xiaogang Yang, Renfu Hu, Chengyong |
| author_facet | Wang, Manman Li, Yanfeng Liu, Hanqing Ni, Haiqiao Niu, Zhichuan Wei, Xiaogang Yang, Renfu Hu, Chengyong |
| contents | Two-photon interference (TPI) is a fundamental phenomenon in quantum optics and plays a crucial role in quantum information science and technology. TPI is commonly considered as quantum interference with an upper bound of $100\%$ for both the TPI visibility and the beat visibility in contrast to its classical counterpart with a maximum visibility of $50\%$. However, this is not always the case. Here we report a simultaneous observation of quantum and classical TPI of single photons with ultralong coherence time which is longer than the photon correlation time by five orders of magnitude. We observe a TPI visibility of $94.3\%\pm 0.2\%$ but a beat visibility of $50\%$. Besides an anti-bunching central dip due to single-photon statistics, we observe two bunching side peaks in cross-correlation curves for indistinguishable photons. Using either classical wave superposition theory or quantum field approach, we derive the same expressions for the cross-correlation functions which reproduce and explain the experiments well. We conclude that quantum TPI with a stream of single photons is equivalent to classical TPI, both of which are the fourth-order interference arising from the second-order interference occurring on the time scale of photon coherence time. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2404_05158 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Quantum and Classical Two-photon Interference of Single Photons with Ultralong Coherence Time Wang, Manman Li, Yanfeng Liu, Hanqing Ni, Haiqiao Niu, Zhichuan Wei, Xiaogang Yang, Renfu Hu, Chengyong Quantum Physics Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics Optics Two-photon interference (TPI) is a fundamental phenomenon in quantum optics and plays a crucial role in quantum information science and technology. TPI is commonly considered as quantum interference with an upper bound of $100\%$ for both the TPI visibility and the beat visibility in contrast to its classical counterpart with a maximum visibility of $50\%$. However, this is not always the case. Here we report a simultaneous observation of quantum and classical TPI of single photons with ultralong coherence time which is longer than the photon correlation time by five orders of magnitude. We observe a TPI visibility of $94.3\%\pm 0.2\%$ but a beat visibility of $50\%$. Besides an anti-bunching central dip due to single-photon statistics, we observe two bunching side peaks in cross-correlation curves for indistinguishable photons. Using either classical wave superposition theory or quantum field approach, we derive the same expressions for the cross-correlation functions which reproduce and explain the experiments well. We conclude that quantum TPI with a stream of single photons is equivalent to classical TPI, both of which are the fourth-order interference arising from the second-order interference occurring on the time scale of photon coherence time. |
| title | Quantum and Classical Two-photon Interference of Single Photons with Ultralong Coherence Time |
| topic | Quantum Physics Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics Optics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.05158 |