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Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference

High-visibility classical multi-photon interference

I. N. Agafonov, Maria V. Chekhova, T. Sh. Iskhakov

Published May 1, 2007• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

High-visibility multi-photon interference is usually considered as a signature of nonclassical light. We show, theoretically and experimentally, that three-photon interference visibility can be as high as 81.8% for coherent light and 60% for thermal light.
DOI
10.1109/qels.2007.4431229

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It is shown theoretically and experimentally that the third-order interference of intensities, which is studied in many works performed in the last decade and is usually attributed to three-photon entanglement, can also be observed for classical light with a high visibility up to 81.8%. The calculations show that classical sources ensure an even higher visibility of the interference pattern up to 94.4% for fourth order intensity interference. Thus, a large visibility of the interference pattern of the third and higher orders cannot be considered an attribute of the nonclassical character of the effect.
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