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Quantum Electronics

Multiphoton correlations in parametric down-conversion and their measurement in the pulsed regime

Olga Aleksandrovna Ivanova, T. Sh. Iskhakov, Alexander N. Penin, Maria V. Chekhova

Published Oct 31, 2006• 62 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We consider normalised intensity correlation functions (CFs) of different orders for light emitted via parametric down-conversion (PDC) and their dependence on the number of photons per mode. The main problem in measuring such correlation functions is their extremely small width, which considerably reduces their contrast. It is shown that if the radiation under study is modulated by a periodic sequence of pulses that are short compared to the CF width, no decrease in the contrast occurs. A procedure is proposed for measuring normalised CFs of various orders in the pulsed regime. For nanosecond-pulsed PDC radiation, normalised second-order CF is measured experimentally as a function of the mean photon number.

DOI
10.1070/qe2006v036n10abeh013300

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We consider normalised intensity correlation functions (CFs) of different orders for light emitted via parametric down-conversion (PDC) and their dependence on the number of photons per mode. The main problem in measuring such correlation functions is their extremely small width, which considerably reduces their contrast. It is shown that if the radiation under study is modulated by a periodic sequence of pulses that are short compared to the CF width, no decrease in the contrast occurs. A procedure is proposed for measuring normalised CFs of various orders in the pulsed regime. For nanosecond-pulsed PDC radiation, normalised second-order CF is measured experimentally as a function of the mean photon number.
Using the zero time-delay second-order correlation function for studying photon statistics, we investigate how the photon statistics of field-modes generated by the parametric down-conversion (PDC) process depends on the photon statistics of the pump field-mode. We derive general expressions for the zero time-delay second-order correlation function of the down-converted field-modes for both multi-mode and single-mode PDC processes. We further study these expressions in the weak down-conversion limit. We show that for a two-photon two-mode PDC process, in which a pump photon splits into two photons into two separate field-modes, the zero time-delay second-order correlation function of the individual down-converted field-modes is equal to twice that of the pump field-mode. Furthermore, for an n -photon n -mode down-conversion process, in which a pump photon splits into n photons into n separate field-modes, the zero time-delay second-order correlation function of the individual down-converted field-modes is equal to 2 ( n − 1 ) times that of the pump field- mode. However, in contrast to multi-mode PDC processes, for a single-mode PDC process, in which a pump photon splits into two or more photons into a single mode, the zero time-delay second-order correlation function of the down-converted field-mode is not proportional to that of the pump in the weak down-conversion limit. Nevertheless, we find it to be inversely proportional to the average number of photons in the pump field-mode.
We study a possibility of measuring the time-resolved second-order autocorrelation function of one of two beams generated in type-II parametric down-conversion by means of temporal magnification of this beam, bringing its correlation time from the picosecond to the nanosecond scale, which can be resolved by modern photodetectors. We show that such a measurement enables one to infer directly the degree of global coherence of that beam, which is linked by a simple relation to the number of modes characterizing the entanglement between the two generated beams. We illustrate the proposed method by an example of photon pairs generated in a periodically poled potassium titanyl phosphate (KTP) crystal with a symmetric group velocity matching for various durations of the pump pulse, resulting in different numbers of modes. Our theoretical model also shows that the magnified double-heralded autocorrelation function of one beam exhibits a local maximum around zero delay time, corresponding to photon bunching at a short time scale.
Summary form only given. Recent advances in the design of broadband parametric down-conversion (PDC) sources have opened the possibility to attain a regime of high squeezing previously unacessible in the pulsed domain [1]. However, characterising a PDC source is a challenging task when multiple spectral modes are being squeezed simultaneously and one wants to determine the number of squeezers and their relative strengths. Moreover, as one approaches the high squeezing regime, a number of nonlinear effects that are not usually considered when the source is operated at low pump power become relevant [2, 3].Here we present a technique to perform a complete and self-referenced characterisation of a broadband PDC source using only classical measurements. Often, PDC sources are described by their joint spectral amplitude, which conveys the frequency correlations between the generated photons. Our method complements the information contained in the joint spectrum with a measurement of a second-order process that to our knowledge has not been directly measured until now. Generally, a PDC process can be described as a Bogoliuvov transformation of the bosonic operators of the formaouts (ω) = f dω'Us,s(ω,ω') ains + f dω''Us,i(ω,ω'')(ain i (ω''))† for the signal and analogously for the idler mode. In our work we show that these transfer functions, Us,s(i,i) and Us,i(i,s), can be measured in the stimulated regime [4,5], by scanning the wavelength of a narrowband seed laser and performing a frequency resolved intensity measurement of the generated light.
Four-photon correlations of the output radiation of a parametric amplifier with a vacuum at the input are considered for an arbitrary parametric gain coefficient. Such states are interpreted in the literature as four-photon states. It is shown that the fourth-order correlation function for such states in the limit of a small number of photons has an asymptotics typical of two-photon states. Nevertheless, even in the “classical” limit of high intensities, the level of four-photon correlations, i.e., the value of the normalized fourth-order correlation function, is substantially greater than that for coherent and even thermal fields.