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Scientific Reports

Hanbury Brown-Twiss effect without two-photon interference in photon counting regime

Bin Bai, Yu Zhou, Ruifeng Liu, Huaibin Zheng, Yunlong Wang, Fuli Li, Zhuo Xu

Published May 15, 2017• 8 citations
Publisher

Abstract

From quantum point of view, Hanbury Brown-Twiss effect is a result of constructive-destructive two-photon interference. There should be no Hanbury Brown-Twiss effect if there was no two-photon interference. In this paper, we observed Hanbury Brown- Twiss effect in a specially designed experiment, in which two-photon interference is impossible by keeping only one two-photon probability amplitude in the experimental scheme. However, our experimental results can still be interpreted by Glauber's quantum optical coherence theory. The researches in our paper are helpful to understand the physics of the second-order coherence of light, especially the physics of Hanbury Brown-Twiss effect.

DOI
10.1038/s41598-017-02408-6

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From quantum point of view, Hanbury Brown-Twiss effect is a result of constructive-destructive two-photon interference. There should be no Hanbury Brown-Twiss effect if there was no two-photon interference. In this paper, we observed Hanbury Brown- Twiss effect in a specially designed experiment, in which two-photon interference is impossible by keeping only one two-photon probability amplitude in the experimental scheme. However, our experimental results can still be interpreted by Glauber's quantum optical coherence theory. The researches in our paper are helpful to understand the physics of the second-order coherence of light, especially the physics of Hanbury Brown-Twiss effect.
Usually HBT effect can be interpreted by classical (intensity fluctuation correlation) and quantum (interference of two-photon probability amplitudes) theories properly at the same time. In this manuscript, we report a deliberately designed experiment in which two chaotic light beams has the same intensity fluctuation but mutual-orthogonal polarizations to each other so there will be no interference of two-photon probability amplitudes. Classical and quantum theory give different predictions on if there should be HBT (photon bunching) effect or not in the experiment. The experiment results are used to test the two different predictions. At the end, both the temporal and spatial HBT effects are observed.
The Hanbury Brown-Twiss effect is one of the celebrated phenomenologies of modern physics that accommodates equally well classical (interferences of waves) and quantum (correlations between indistinguishable particles) interpretations. The effect was discovered in the late thirties with a basic observation of Hanbury Brown that radio-pulses from two distinct antennas generate signals on the oscilloscope that wiggle similarly to the naked eye. When Hanbury Brown and his mathematician colleague Twiss took the obvious step to propose bringing the effect in the optical range, they met with considerable opposition as single-photon interferences were deemed impossible. The Hanbury Brown-Twiss effect is nowadays universally accepted and, being so fundamental, embodies many subtleties of our understanding of the wave/particle dual nature of light. Thanks to a novel experimental technique, we report here a generalized version of the Hanbury Brown-Twiss effect to include the frequency of the detected light, or, from the particle point of view, the energy of the detected photons. Our source of light is a polariton condensate, that allows high-resolution filtering of a spectrally broad source with a high degree of coherence. In addition to the known tendencies of indistinguishable photons to arrive together on the detector, we find that photons of different colors present the opposite characteristic of avoiding each others. We postulate that fermions can be similarly brought to exhibit positive (boson-like) correlations by frequency filtering.
The Hanbury Brown–Twiss (HBT) effect, at the quantum level, is essentially an interference of one particle with another, as opposed to interference of a particle with itself. Conventional treatments of identical particles encounter difficulties while dealing with entanglement. A recently introduced label-free approach to indistinguishable particles is described, and is used to analyze the HBT effect. Quantum wave-packets have been used to provide a better understanding of the quantum interpretation of the HBT effect. The effect is demonstrated for two independent particles governed by Bose–Einstein or Fermi–Dirac statistics. The HBT effect is also analyzed for pairs of entangled particles. Surprisingly, entanglement has almost no effect on the interference seen in the HBT effect. In the light of the results, an old quantum optics experiment is reanalyzed, and it is argued that the interference seen in that experiment is not a consequence of non-local correlations between the photons, as is commonly believed. Quanta 2017; 6: 61–69.
The Hanbury Brown-Twiss effect is one of the celebrated phenomenologies of modern physics that accommodates equally well classical (interferences of waves) and quantum (correlations between indistinguishable particles) interpretations.The effect was discovered in the late thirties with a basic observation of Hanbury Brown that radio-pulses from two distinct antennas generate signals on the oscilloscope that wiggle similarly to the naked eye.When Hanbury Brown and his mathematician colleague Twiss took the obvious step to propose bringing the effect in the optical range, they met with considerable opposition as single-photon interferences were deemed impossible.The Hanbury Brown-Twiss effect is nowadays universally accepted and, being so fundamental, embodies many subtleties of our understanding of the wave/particle dual nature of light.Thanks to a novel experimental technique, we report here a generalized version of the Hanbury Brown-Twiss effect to include the frequency of the detected light, or, from the particle point of view, the energy of the detected photons.Our source of light is a polariton condensate, that allows high-resolution filtering of a spectrally broad source with a high degree of coherence.In addition to the known tendencies of indistinguishable photons to arrive together on the detector, we find that photons of different colors present the opposite characteristic of avoiding each others.We postulate that fermions can be similarly brought to exhibit positive (bosonlike) correlations by frequency filtering.
Two-photon correlation phenomena of chaotic light, including the historical Hanbury Brown and Twiss effect, are essentially quantum effect of two-photon interference, instead of classical statistical correlation between intensity fluctuations. To support our view, we analyze a "ghost" imaging experiment with chaotic light for which the classical understanding does not give a satisfactory interpretation. We also provide a two-photon optical picture of ghost imaging with chaotic light in terms of two-photon phase-conjugate mirror which suggests lensless imaging applications for radiations for which no effective lens is available.
Two-photon correlation phenomena of chaotic light, including the historical Hanbury Brown and Twiss effect, are essentially the quantum effect of two-photon interference, instead of the classical statistical correlation between intensity fluctuations. To support our view, we analyze a "ghost" imaging experiment with chaotic light for which the classical understanding does not give a satisfactory interpretation. We also provide a two-photon optical picture of ghost imaging with chaotic light in terms of a two-photon phase-conjugate mirror, which suggests lensless imaging applications for radiations for which no effective lens is available.