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arXiv:1008.0078 · Physical Review Letters

Interferometry with Two Pairs of Spin Correlated Photons

Mladen Pavičić, Johann Summhammer

Published Dec 12, 1994• 26 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We propose a new experiment employing two independent sources of spin correlated photon pairs. Two photons from different unpolarized sources each pass through a polarizer to a detector. Although their trajectories never mix or cross, they exhibit fourth-order-interference-like correlations when the other two photons interfere on a beam splitter even when the latter two do not pass any polarizers at all. A wave packet calculation shows that the experiment permits a very discriminatory test of hidden variable theories.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.73.3191

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We propose a new experiment employing two independent sources of spin correlated photon pairs. Two photons from different unpolarized sources each pass through a polarizer to a detector. Although their trajectories never mix or cross, they exhibit fourth-order-interference-like correlations when the other two photons interfere on a beam splitter even when the latter two do not pass any polarizers at all. A wave packet calculation shows that the experiment permits a very discriminatory test of hidden variable theories.
A nonclassical feature of the fourth-order interference at a beam splitter, that genuine photon spin singlets are emitted in predetermined directions even when incident photons are unpolarized, has been used in a proposal for an experiment that imposes a quantum spin correlation on truly independent photons. In the experiment two photons from two such singlets interfere at a beam splitter, and as a result the other two photons—which nowhere interacted and whose paths nowhere crossed—exhibit a 100% correlation in polarization, even when no polarization has been measured in the first two photons. The proposed experiment permits closure of the remaining loopholes in the Bell theorem proof, reveals the quantum nonlocality as a property of selection, and pioneers an experimental procedure for the exact preparation of unequal superposition.
We examine the fourth-order interference properties of two photons at a lossless four-port optical device. The photon pair is represented by a joint single-photon wave-packet state with arbitrary spectral composition. We explicitly determine the coincidence probabilities at the output ports of a beam splitter and a Mach-Zehnder interferometer when the incident wave packet is described by a joint Gaussian spectral distribution and the two photons are incident one at each port of the device. For uncorrelated and distinguishable input photons, the fourth-order interference is readily understood in terms of the particle or wave behavior of each photon acting separately. On the other hand, highly correlated photon pairs, such as those generated from spontaneous parametric down-conversion, exhibit fourth-order interference effects at the output of the interferometer that depend expressly on the joint nature of the photon-pair wave packet, and cannot be described by the particle or wave behavior of either photon.
Although we tend to think of optical interference as a classical wave phenomenon, recent experiments have revealed a number of effects that are not describable in classical terms. This is particularly true of interference effects involving the detection of a photon pair. We shall refer to them as fourth order interference, on the grounds that the joint probability density for the detection of one photon at r sub 1 at time t and another r sub 2 at time t is proportional to the fourth order correlation function of the field. This probability is readily measured when two photodetectors are positioned at r sub 1 and r sub 2 and the signals from the two detectors are fed to a coincidence counter that registers 'simultaneous' detections by the two detectors in coincidence. The topics covered include: fourth order interference measurements; the Franson experiment; and experimental test of the de Broglie guided wave theory.
In a series of experiments performed by Mandel and co-workers, nonclassical effects have been demonstrated in the interference of two photons generated in a process of parametric down-conversion. The nonclassical effects in the two-photon interference effects can be discussed in the framework of two different descriptions. In the first description, a stochastic theory of electromagnetic field fluctuations can be used in order to calculate the interference pattern. In the second description, a theory of hidden-variable fluctuations can be applied in order to calculate correlations of the interference pattern. A stochastic theory leads to statistical inequalities for the light intensities, while a local hidden-variable theory leads to Bell's inequalities. Using the Schwinger-boson representation of the angular momentum, we show that the two-photon interference effects can be described in terms of spin-correlated states. In particular, we show that the action of a beam splitter on the photons in a parametric down-conversion is equivalent to the production of an entangled state that is very similar to the well-known Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen spin-singlet state. We show that the stochastic theory of two-photon fluctuations is not equivalent to a hidden-variable theory of photon correlations. We establish a range for which the stochastic theory fails but the hidden-variable theory is still possible. We compare our theoretical predictions with the experimental results and conclude that a violation of the stochastic theory has been clearly observed, while the violation of the hidden-variable theory is less pronounced.
We report on a quantum interference experiment to probe the coherence between two photons coming from nondegenerate photon pairs at telecom wavelength created in spatially separated sources. The two photons are mixed on a beam splitter and we observe a reduction of up to 84% in the net coincidence count rate when the photons are made indistinguishable. This experiment constitutes an important step towards the realization of quantum teleportation and entanglement swapping with independent sources.