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arXiv:1312.5805 · Journal of the Optical Society of America B

Transient first-order interference of two independent thermal light beams

Bin Bai, Jianbin Liu, Songlin Zhang, Yuchen He, Mingnan Le, Wentao Wang, Zhuo Xu

Published Mar 17, 2016• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

By analyzing the transient first-order interference of two independent thermal light beams in both classical and quantum theories, we conclude that for a certain kind of thermal light, it is impossible to observe the transient first-order interference pattern by superposing two independent thermal light beams even if the degeneracy parameter of thermal light is much greater than one. The result suggests that the well-accepted classical model of a thermal light field within the coherence time is not valid for all kinds of thermal light, which is important and helpful to understand the first-order interference of thermal light.

DOI
10.1364/josab.33.000643

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By analyzing the transient first-order interference of two independent thermal light beams in both classical and quantum theories, we conclude that for a certain kind of thermal light, it is impossible to observe the transient first-order interference pattern by superposing two independent thermal light beams even if the degeneracy parameter of thermal light is much greater than one. The result suggests that the well-accepted classical model of a thermal light field within the coherence time is not valid for all kinds of thermal light, which is important and helpful to understand the first-order interference of thermal light.
By analyzing the first-order interference of two independent thermal light beams in Feynman's path integral theory, we conclude that it is impossible to observe the transient first-order interference pattern by superposing two independent thermal light beams if the initial phases of the photons in thermal light are random. The result suggests that the classical model of thermal light field within the coherence time may not be the same as the one of laser light field within the coherence time.
The first- and second-order temporal interference between two independent thermal and laser light beams is discussed by employing the superposition principle in Feynman's path integral theory. It is concluded that the first-order temporal interference pattern can not be observed by superposing two independent thermal and laser light beams, while the second-order temporal interference pattern can be observed in the same condition. These predictions are experimentally verified by employing pseudothermal light to simulate thermal light. The relationship between the indistinguishability of alternatives and photons is analyzed. The conclusions are helpful to understand the interference of different kinds of light and the difference between the coherence properties of thermal and laser light.
The study of entangled states greatly advanced our understanding about two-photon interferometry. Two-photon interference is not the interference between two photons, it is about a pair of photons interfering with the pair itself. In the language of quantum theory, two-photon interference is the result of superposition between different yet indistinguishable two-photon probability amplitudes. Under certain conditions, the observed second-order interference can be factorized into a product of two individual classic first-order interferences. In this case, the interference is not only observable from the intensity fluctuation correlation measurement, or from the photon number fluctuation correlation measurement, of two photodetectors, but also observable in the counting rate of each individual photodetector. It may not be uneasy to accept the quantum concept of two-photon interference for “classical” thermal radiation. Indeed, the radiation Planck dealt with was “classical” thermal light. Perhaps, no one would even expect observing nontrivial second-order correlation from a laser beam, since laser field is non-Gaussin.
The second-order temporal interference of classical and nonclassical light at an asymmetrical beam splitter is discussed based on two-photon interference in Feynman's path integral theory. The visibility of the second-order interference pattern is determined by the properties of the superposed light beams, the ratio between the intensities of these two light beams, and the reflectivity of the asymmetrical beam splitter. Some requirements about the asymmetrical beam splitter have to be satisfied in order to ensure that the visibility of the second-order interference pattern of nonclassical light beams exceeds the classical limit. The visibility of the second-order interference pattern of photons emitted by two independent single-photon sources is independent of the ratio between the intensities. These conclusions are important for the researches and applications in quantum optics and quantum information when an asymmetrical beam splitter is employed.
Abstract A novel thermal light interferometer was recently introduced by Tamma and Seiler (2016 New J. Phys. 18 032002). Here, two classically correlated beams, obtained by beam splitting a thermal light beam, propagate through two unbalanced Mach–Zehnder interferometers. Remarkably, second-order interference between the long and the short paths in the two interferometers was predicted independently of how far, in principle, the length difference between the long and short paths is beyond the coherence length of the source. This phenomenon seems to contradict our common understanding of second-order coherence. We provide here a simple description of the physics underlying this effect in terms of two-photon interference.
It has recently been shown that counter-intuitive Franson-like second-order interference can be observed with a pair of classically correlated pseudo thermal light beams and two separate unbalanced interferometers (UIs): the second-order interference visibility remains fixed at 1/3 even though the path length difference in each UI is increased significantly beyond the coherence length of the pseudo thermal light [Phys. Rev. Lett.119, 223603 (2017)PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.119.223603]. However, as the pseudo thermal beam itself originated from a long-coherence laser (and by using a rotating ground disk), there exists the possibility of a classical theoretical model to account for second-order interference beyond the coherence time on the long coherence time of the original laser beam. In this work, we experimentally explore this counter-intuitive phenomenon with a true thermal photon source generated via quantum thermalization, i.e., obtaining a mixed state from a pure two-photon entangled state. This experiment not only demonstrates the unique second-order coherence properties of thermal light clearly but may also open up remote sensing applications based on such effects.