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Oxford University Press eBooks

Hanbury Brown and Twiss, Hong Ou and Mandel effects and other landmarks in quantum optics: from photons to atoms

Alain Aspect

Published May 16, 2019• 5 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The second quantum revolution is based on the concept of entanglement and the ability to observe and manipulate individual quantum objects. This notion was prompted by celebrated quantum optics landmark experiments. The author’s group has endeavored to revisit these experiments with atoms instead of photons, more precisely metastable helium atoms (He*), which can be detected one by one, as photons. The first landmark that announced the beginning of modern quantum optics was the Hanbury Brown and Twiss effect: it has been studied not only with 4He* atoms, which are bosons, but also with 3He* atoms, which are fermions. The group has then observed the atomic Hong Ou and Mandel effect, and, more recently, shown the possibility to use a slightly generalized scheme to test Bell’s inequalities with atoms entangled in momentum.

DOI
10.1093/oso/9780198837190.003.0012

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The second quantum revolution is based on the concept of entanglement and the ability to observe and manipulate individual quantum objects. This notion was prompted by celebrated quantum optics landmark experiments. The author’s group has endeavored to revisit these experiments with atoms instead of photons, more precisely metastable helium atoms (He*), which can be detected one by one, as photons. The first landmark that announced the beginning of modern quantum optics was the Hanbury Brown and Twiss effect: it has been studied not only with 4He* atoms, which are bosons, but also with 3He* atoms, which are fermions. The group has then observed the atomic Hong Ou and Mandel effect, and, more recently, shown the possibility to use a slightly generalized scheme to test Bell’s inequalities with atoms entangled in momentum.
The emergence of Quantum Optics, in the second half of the 20th century, was closely related to landmark experiments, which were permitted by the development of single photon detection and correlation measurements. Photon correlation techniques allowed experimentalists to demonstrate effects closely linked to two-photon amplitudes interference with entangled states, a phenomenon emblematic of the second quantum revolution. In the Atom Optics group at Institut d'Optique, we revisit these experiments with photons replaced by metastable Helium atoms, which can be detected individually. After the Hanbury Brown Twiss and the Hong Ou Mandel experiments, we aim at realizing a test of Bell's inequalities with atoms entangled in momentum, i.e., in external degrees of freedom sensitive to mass.
In this lecture, I first present my views on the second vs the first quantum revolution, then describe the Hanbury Brown and Twiss effect with photons, and indicate why it was so important in the development of modern quantum optics. The presentation of our experiments on the HBT effect with atoms will allow me to emphasize the analogies but also the increased richness of the effect when going from photons to atoms. I will similarly describe the HOM effect for photons and its significance, and then present the analogous experiment with atoms. In conclusion, I will put these two effects in the long list of landmarks in the development of quantum optics, and indicate what has been done and what remains to be done with atoms in lieu of photons.
The celebrated Hong - Ou - Mandel effect is one of the simplest illustrations of two-particle interference, and is unique to the quantum realm. In the original experiment, two photons arriving simultaneously in the input channels of a beam-splitter were observed to always emerge together in one of the output channels. I will discuss the realisation of a closely analogous experiment with atoms instead of photons. This opens the prospect of setting up experiments to violate Bell's inequalities involving mechanical observables of massive particles, such as momentum, using methods inspired by quantum optics. Our work also demonstrates a new way to produce and benchmark twin-atom pairs that are of interest for quantum information processing and quantum simulation.