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arXiv:1002.1547 · Physical Review A

Nonlocal Pancharatnam phase in two-photon interferometry

Poonam Mehta, Joseph Samuel, Supurna Sinha

Published Sep 30, 2010• 9 citations
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Abstract

We propose a polarized intensity interferometry experiment, which measures the nonlocal Pancharatnam phase acquired by a pair of Hanbury-Brown--Twiss photons. The setup involves two polarized thermal sources illuminating two polarized detectors. Varying the relative polarization angle of the detectors introduces a two-photon geometric phase. Local measurements at either detector do not reveal the effects of the phase, which is an optical analog of the multiparticle Aharonov-Bohm effect. The geometric phase sheds light on the three-slit experiment and suggests ways of tuning entanglement.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.82.034102

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We propose a polarized intensity interferometry experiment, which measures the nonlocal Pancharatnam phase acquired by a pair of Hanbury-Brown--Twiss photons. The setup involves two polarized thermal sources illuminating two polarized detectors. Varying the relative polarization angle of the detectors introduces a two-photon geometric phase. Local measurements at either detector do not reveal the effects of the phase, which is an optical analog of the multiparticle Aharonov-Bohm effect. The geometric phase sheds light on the three-slit experiment and suggests ways of tuning entanglement.
We report the experimental observation of the non-local geometric phase in Hanbury Brown-Twiss polarized intensity interferometry.The experiment involves two independent, polarized, incoherent sources, illuminating two polarized detectors.Varying the relative polarization angle between the detectors introduces a geometric phase equal to half the solid angle on the Poincaré sphere traced out by a pair of single photons.Local measurements at either detector do not reveal the effect of the geometric phase, which appears only in the coincidence counts between the two detectors, showing a genuinely non-local effect.We show experimentally that coincidence rates of photon arrival times at separated detectors can be controlled by the two-photon geometric phase.This effect can be used for manipulating and controlling photonic entanglement.
We demonstrate the existence of a non-local geometric phase in the intensity-intensity correlations of classical incoherent light, that is not seen in the lower-order correlations. This two-photon Pancharatnam phase was observed and modulated in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. Using acousto-optic interaction, independent phase noise was introduced to light in the two arms of the interferometer to create two independent incoherent classical sources from laser light. The experiment is the classical optical analogue of the multi-particle Aharonov-Bohm effect. As the trajectory of light over the Poincaré sphere introduces a phase shift observable only in the intensity-intensity correlation, it provides a means of deflecting the two-photon wavefront, while having no effect on single photons.
The geometric phase was first anticipated 1956 by Pancharatnam, in the context of polarised light. Much later, in 1984, Berry made an analogue discovery, but this time in the context of quantum mechanics. It turns our that the geometric phase, or Berry's phase, or the Pancharatnam phase, is a very general phenomenon. It is a phase shift that can be acquired by a system, when it has undergone a adiabatic process, bringing it back to its original initial conditions. If the parameter space of the involved Hamiltonian is curved, the final condition may involve a phase change. This effect has been demonstrated in a range of different interferometry experiments. Although the Pancharatnam phase has been seen, this has always been in studies involving the first order correlation, g(1), this is in the intereferogramm of two or more wave amplitudes. Here, we demonstrate experimental proofs of the effect of the Pancharatnam phase in intensity interferometry, or in other words, where the second order correlation factor g(2) is the relevant description of the interference.
Photon pairs produced by type-I and type-II parametric down-conversion are passed through a Michelson interferometer. Two quarter-wave plates in one arm of the interferometer allow variation of the polarization state of the photons. We investigate experimentally the geometric phase or Pancharatnam phase acquired by single photons and photon pairs dependent on the solid angle that is subtended by the circuit that represents the varying state of polarization on the Poincar\'e sphere. It is found that the geometric phase acquired by the pair depends on the initial polarization state of the two photons. If both photons are in equal states of linear polarization, we observe a doubling of the geometric phase compared to single photons; in the case of orthogonal states of linear polarization, the geometric phase is completely canceled. Our results show the role of Pancharatnam's phase in nonclassical two-photon interference phenomena and the interplay between the geometric phase and the dynamical phase in these phenomena.
An experiment is proposed to show that after initial frequency and polarization selection, classical thermal light from two independent sources can be made path-polarization entangled. Such light will show new intensity-intensity correlations involving both path and polarization phases, formally similar to those for four-particle GHZ states. For fixed polarization phases, the correlations reduce to the Hanbury Brown-Twiss phase correlations. It is also shown that these classical correlations violate noncontextuality.
Quantum entanglement enables a wide range of fundamental studies and practical applications in quantum optics, computing, and communication. In this work, we investigate two-photon interference using position-momentum entangled photons generated via Type-II Spontaneous Parametric Down-Conversion (SPDC). By employing a double-slit setup, we explore two distinct quantum interference phenomena: the Hanbury Brown and Twiss (HBT) effect, where the photons pass through different slits, and NOON-state interference, where both photons traverse the same slit. We deterministically separate the two photons based on their orthogonal polarizations and demonstrate that both interference effects persist despite their distinguishability at the detectors. This result goes beyond the conventional understanding of two-photon interference and reveals a novel nonlocal HBT effect, where interference occurs even in the absence of spatial overlap, and is rooted in entanglement. Our findings deepen the understanding of quantum interference and open new avenues for applications in quantum optics and precision measurement.