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Optics Letters

Bose–Einstein photon correlations in the stochastic interferometer

F. De Martini, L. De Dominicis

Published Mar 15, 1992• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We describe a nonstationary field interferometer, a device for measuring interference among particle Feynman paths that arise from an externally driven stochastic scattering process. Bose-Einstein photon correlations are found to arise from a uniform distribution of the driving noise. A quantum visibility theory valid for any excitation noise distribution is given. The results are considered from the perspective of the probability theory and of statistical mechanics.

DOI
10.1364/ol.17.000429

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We describe a nonstationary field interferometer, a device for measuring interference among particle Feynman paths that arise from an externally driven stochastic scattering process. Bose-Einstein photon correlations are found to arise from a uniform distribution of the driving noise. A quantum visibility theory valid for any excitation noise distribution is given. The results are considered from the perspective of the probability theory and of statistical mechanics.
The realization of the optical stochastic (or nonstationary) field interferometer (Sto-IF) is reported. By this device, whose properties are determined by those of the stochastic beam splitter (Sto-BS), relevant Bose-Einstein correlations are generated within the investigated particle field. A very general quantum theory of Sto-BS and Sto-IF is reported. Because it accounts for any distribution function of the Sto-BS driving field, this theory embodies the formal content and the results of previous interferometry theories. All theoretical results are substantiated by an experiment carried out with a Mach-Zehnder Sto-IF. Basic considerations on Bohr's complementarity in stochastic interferometry are expressed on the basis of Shannon's information theory applied to the particle welcher weg problem.
We report the experimental realization of first- and second-order optical stochastic interferometry with single-photon Fock states and with a couple of photons generated by spontaneous parametric downconversion. The behavior of the constitutive element of the stochastic interferometer, the stochastic beam splitter, is theoretically described, both for first- and second-order interferometry. The theory predicts a reduction of the visibility from 1 to π/4 and to 1/2, respectively, for the two cases. These results are a direct consequence of the presence of Bose–Einstein correlations within the electromagnetic field. The visibility reduction obtained in the two experiments and their comparison with theoretical predictions are discussed in detail.
The results of an experiment show that the quantum-particles optical photons obey either Maxwell-Boltzmann or intermediate, or Bose-Einstein statistics depending on the degree of randomness of the scattering cross-section. This suggests a consistent model for the (most mysterious) interparticle quantum-correlation process. To accomplish that, we have adopted a novel quantum-optics method that, being sensitive to the field particle fluctuations, reveals the "quantum signature" of any Bose field. The intertatistics transition process is investigated both theoretically and experimentally.
Abstract It is shown by a quantum-mechanical treatment that the emission times of photoelectrons at different points illuminated by a plane wave of light are partially correlated, and identical results are obtained by a classical theory in which the photocathode is regarded as a square-law detector of suitable conversion efficiency. It is argued that the phenomenon exemplifies the wave rather than the particle aspect of light and that it may most easily be interpreted as a correlation between the intensity fluctuations at different points on a wavefront which arise because of interference between different frequency components of the light. From the point of view of the corpuscular picture the interpretation is much less straight­forward but it is shown that the correlation is directly related to the so-called bunching of photons which arises because light quanta are mutually indistinguishable and obey Bose-Einstein statistics. However, it is stressed that the use of the photon concept before the light energy is actually detected is highly misleading since, in an interference experiment, the electromagnetic field behaves in a manner which cannot be explained in terms of classical particles. The quantitative predictions of the theory have been confirmed by laboratory experi­ments and the phenomenon has been used, in an interferometer, to measure the apparent angular diameter of Sirius: these results, together with further applications to astronomy, will be discussed in detail in later papers. It is shown that the classical and quantum treatments give identical results when applied to find the fluctuations in the photoemission current produced by a single light beam, and the connexion between these fluctuations and the correlation between photons in coherent beams is pointed out. The results given here are in full agreement with those obtained by Kahn from an analysis based on quantum statistics: however, they differ from those derived on thermodynamical grounds by Fellgett and by Clark Jones and the reasons for this discrepancy are discussed.
Abstract In this paper, we investigate the possibility of explaining nonclassical correlations between two quantum systems in terms of quantum interferences between collective states of the two systems. We achieve this by mapping the relations between different measurement contexts in the product Hilbert space of a pair of two-level systems onto an analogous sequence of interferences between paths in a single-particle interferometer. The relations between different measurement outcomes are then traced to the distribution of probability currents in the interferometer, where paradoxical relations between the outcomes are identified with currents connecting two states that are orthogonal and should therefore exclude each other. We show that the relation between probability currents and correlations can be represented by continuous conditional (quasi)probability currents through the interferometer, given by weak values; the violation of the noncontextual assumption is expressed by negative conditional currents in some of the paths. Since negative conditional currents correspond to the assignment of negative conditional probabilities to measurements results in different measurement contexts, the necessity of such negative probability currents represents a failure of noncontextual local realism. Our results help to explain the meaning of nonlocal correlations in quantum mechanics, and support Feynman’s claim that interference is the origin of all quantum phenomena.
Atom interferometers are powerful tools for the study of fundamental issues in quantum mechanics. This paper describes the use of our atom interferometer [1] for an experimental realization of Feynman's gedanken experiment in which the observation of photons scattered off of particles emerging from a double slit is used to obtain which path information. This determination, in principal, of the particle's path, destroys any interference effects downstream. The interference can be regained by observing only those particles which scatter a photon into a small range of final directions.