Multi-Photon Interference and Temporal Distinguishability of Photons

Abstract

A number of recent interference experiments involving multiple photons are reviewed. These experiments include generalized photon bunching effects, generalized Hong-Ou-Mandel interference effects and multi-photon interferometry for demonstrations of multi-photon de Broglie wavelength. The multi-photon states used in these experiments are from two pairs of photons in parametric down-conversion. We find that the size of the interference effect in these experiments, characterized by the visibility of interference pattern, is governed by the degree of distinguishability among different pairs of photons. Based on this discovery, we generalize the concept of multi-photon temporal distinguishability and relate it to a number of multi-photon interference effects. Finally, we make an attempt to interpret the coherence theory by the multi-photon interference via the concept of temporal distinguishability of photons.

fixed figures 4,5,7

References in corpus (7)

• Beating the Standard Quantum Limit with Four Entangled Photons
• Demonstration of Temporal Distinguishability in a Four-Photon State and a Six-Photon State
• Four-Photon Interference with Asymmetric Beam Splitters
• Entanglement generation by Fock-state filtration
• Characterizing Temporal Distinguishability of an N-Photon State by Generalized Photon Bunching Effect with Multi-Photon Interference
• Demonstration of three-photon de Broglie wavelength by projection measurement
• Demonstration of Temporal Distinguishability of Three and Four Photons with Asymmetric Beam Splitter