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Triple photons and triple slits, a new frontier in quantum mechanics tests

Thomas D. Jennewein, Hannes Hübel, Deny R. Hamel, Alessandro Fedrizzi, S. Ramelov, Kevin J. Resch, Urbasi Sinha, Christophe Couteau, Raymond Laflamme, Gregor Weihs

Published Jan 1, 2011• 1 citation

Abstract

We will present our recent results in the generation of triple photons as well as triple slits, both providing interesting perspectives on the foundations of quantum mechanics and quantum optics. The creation of correlated triple photons [1] is a highly desirable process for research on quantum optics, novel states of three-photon entanglement, and applications in quantum information processing. It was proposed over 20 years ago, but considered impossible to perform given the low conversion efficiencies in non-linear optics. We recently managed to solve the technical challenges, and demonstrate a source for correlated photon triplets. Strikingly, the interferences of single photons passing through a triple slit can be useful for experimental verification of Born’s rule, which is at the heart of the formalism of quantum mechanics. We will illustrate the background of the argumentation, and show the elegant experimental setup, which allows this direct test of Born’s rule [2].

DOI: 10.1364/cleo_at.2011.jtuf2

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This paper is based on work published in [1]. It describes a triple slit experiment using single photons that has been used to provide a bound on one of the most fundamental axioms of quantum mechanics i.e. Born’s rule for probabilities [2]. In spite of being one of the most successful theories which describes various natural phenomena, quantum mechanics has enough intricacies and “weirdness” associated with it which makes many physicists believe that it may not be the final theory and hints towards the possibility of more generalized versions. Quantum interference as shown by a double slit diffraction experiment only occurs from pairs of paths. Even in multi‐slit versions, interference can only occur between pairs of possibilities and increasing the number of slits does not increase the complexity of the theory that still remains second‐order. However, more generalized versions of quantum mechanics may allow for multi‐path i.e. higher than second order interference. This experiment also provides a bound on the magnitude of such higher order interference. We have been able to bound the magnitude of three‐path interference to less than 10−2 of the expected two‐path interference, thus ruling out third and higher order interference and providing a bound on the accuracy of Born’s rule.

In Mod. Phys. Lett. A 9, 3119 (1994), one of us (R.D.S) investigated a formulation of quantum mechanics as a generalized measure theory. Quantum mechanics computes probabilities from the absolute squares of complex amplitudes, and the resulting interference violates the (Kolmogorov) sum rule expressing the additivity of probabilities of mutually exclusive events. However, there is a higher order sum rule that quantum mechanics does obey, involving the probabilities of three mutually exclusive possibilities. We could imagine a yet more general theory by assuming that it violates the next higher sum rule. In this paper, we report results from an ongoing experiment that sets out to test the validity of this second sum rule by measuring the interference patterns produced by three slits and all the possible combinations of those slits being open or closed. We use attenuated laser light combined with single photon counting to confirm the particle character of the measured light.

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