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arXiv:1601.05045 · Optics Express

Spatial interference between pairs of disjoint optical paths with a single chaotic source

Michele Cassano, Milena D’Angelo, Augusto Garuccio, Tao Peng, Yanhua Shih, Vincenzo Tamma

Published Mar 13, 2017• 20 citations
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Abstract

We demonstrate a novel second-order spatial interference effect between two indistinguishable pairs of disjoint optical paths from a single chaotic source. Beside providing a deeper understanding of the physics of multi-photon interference and coherence, the effect enables retrieving information on both the spatial structure and the relative position of two distant double-pinhole masks, in the absence of first order coherence. We also demonstrate the exploitation of the phenomenon for simulating quantum logic gates, including a controlled-NOT gate operation.

DOI
10.1364/oe.25.006589

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We demonstrate a novel second-order spatial interference effect between two indistinguishable pairs of disjoint optical paths from a single chaotic source. Beside providing a deeper understanding of the physics of multi-photon interference and coherence, the effect enables retrieving information on both the spatial structure and the relative position of two distant double-pinhole masks, in the absence of first order coherence. We also demonstrate the exploitation of the phenomenon for simulating quantum logic gates, including a controlled-NOT gate operation.
We demonstrate a novel second-order spatial interference effect between two indistinguishable pairs of disjoint optical paths from a single chaotic source.Beside providing a deeper understanding of the physics of multi-photon interference and coherence, the effect enables retrieving information on both the spatial structure and the relative position of two distant double-pinhole masks, in the absence of first order coherence.We also demonstrate the exploitation of the phenomenon for simulating quantum logic gates, including a controlled-NOT gate operation.
We present the experimental characterization of two distant double-slit masks illuminated by chaotic light, in the absence of first-order imaging and interference. The scheme exploits second-order interference of light propagating through two indistinguishable pairs of disjoint optical paths passing through the masks of interest. The proposed technique leads to a deeper understanding of biphoton interference and coherence, and opens the way to the development of novel schemes for retrieving information on the relative position and the spatial structure of distant objects, which is of interest in remote sensing, biomedical imaging, as well as monitoring of laser ablation, when first-order imaging and interference are not feasible.
We theoretically demonstrate a counter-intuitive phenomenon in optical interferometry with a thermal source: the emergence of second-order interference between two pairs of correlated optical paths even if the time delay imprinted by each path in one pair with respect to each path in the other pair is much larger than the source coherence time. This fundamental effect could be useful for experimental simulations of small-scale quantum circuits and of 100%-visibility correlations typical of entangled states of a large number of qubits, with possible applications in high-precision metrology and imaging. As an example, we demonstrate the polarization-encoded simulation of the operation of the quantum logic gate known as controlled-NOT gate.
Indistinguishability of events in quantum mechanics is manifested by interference between their probability amplitudes. We report a unique kind of interference occurring between indistinguishable events of photon-pair emission, where each photon of the pair is emitted from a distinct true chaotic light source and has a different energy. The indistinguishability results in an interference which is observed as an ultrafast modulation of the second-order coherence function, measured on a femtosecond time scale by two-photon absorption in a semiconductor photomultiplier tube.
We report an experiment of observation of classical double-slit interference fringes of two-photon interference. In the experiment, a commercial continuous-wave multi-mode F-P laser diode without either mode-locked or frequency-locked is used as the light source, the density of photons is far more than the single-photon level, and the path difference of the long and short paths is far more than the longitudinal coherence length of the laser diode. The temporal stable and clearly visible spatial-distributed pattern, i.e. first-order interference fringes, was observed .Contradict to the prediction of single-photon interference mechanism, the interference happened far beyond the coherence length, the occurrence possibility and time duration of the interference fringes decrease with the reduction of mode number of the LD, and the time difference between the fringes disappearance and the light vanish is equal to the time difference of the two paths. After discussion, we came to the conclusion that the observed phenomena can be understood in time-resolved two-photon interference mechanism. We reveal a new method to perform two-photon first-order interference, and this help to understand the nature of two-photon interference and also can be useful for quantum information science.
The interference phenomenon of light is a common but most important effect in physics. In this article, we compare and analyse the interference effects of both coherent and incoherent light; in particular, the interference of spatially incoherent light sources is described. Thermal light and a two-photon entangled source may both be regarded as incoherent sources which can generate similar second-order interference effects, but their underlying physics is quite different. First-order interference can be realized with both spatially coherent and incoherent sources in the same well-designed experimental setup, but exhibit different interference patterns; their different interference mechanisms will also be clarified.