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arXiv:quant-ph/0206039 · Physical Review Letters

Experimental Observation of Spatial Antibunching of Photons

W. A. T. Nogueira, Stephen Patrick Walborn, Sebastião Pádua, Carlos Henrique Monken

Published Apr 30, 2001• 50 citations
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Abstract

We report an interference experiment that shows transverse spatial antibunching of photons. Using collinear parametric down-conversion in a Young-type fourth-order interference setup, we show interference patterns that violate classical Schwarz inequality and should not exist at all in a classical description.
DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.86.4009

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The theoretical framework behind a recent experiment by Nogueira et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 4009 (2001)] of spatial antibunching in a two-photon state generated by collinear type-II parametric down-conversion and a birefringent double slit is presented. The fourth-order quantum correlation function is evaluated and shown to violate the classical Schwarz-type inequality, ensuring that the field does not have a classical analog. We expect these results to be useful in the rapidly growing fields of quantum imaging and quantum information.
Conditional interference fringes are found when parametric down-converted photon pairs are sent to two Young's double slits. The transmitted photon pairs are detected in coincidence as a function of the transverse spatial coordinates. Conditional interference is found in the fourth-order interference pattern with and without second-order interference. A quantum multimode calculation shows that the fourth-order Young interference pattern is strongly dependent on the transverse profile of the pump laser that generates the twin photon pairs. Conditionality is observed by tailoring this profile. A control of the conditionality is obtained via the pump laser beam transverse profile.
A new fourth-order interference experiment has been carried out and analyzed theoretically in classical and in quantum terms. Two photons produced in the process of parametric down-conversion provide the two inputs to a Mach-Zehnder type of interferometer, while two photodetectors coupled to a coincidence counter measure the output. The coincidence rate, after subtraction of accidentals, exhibits a cosine variation with the optical path difference, in agreement with quantum mechanics, but in disagreement with a classical analysis. By contrast, when two coherent light beams from a He:Ne laser are used as inputs to the interferometer, no fourth-order interference is observed.
The visibilities of second-order (one-photon) and fourth-order (two-photon) interference have been observed in a Young's double-slit experiment using light generated by spontaneous parametric down-conversion and a photon-counting intensified charge-coupled device camera. Coherence and entanglement underlie one- and two-photon interference, respectively. As the effective source size is increased, coherence is diminished while entanglement is enhanced, so that the visibility of one-photon interference decreases while that of two-photon interference increases. This experiment demonstrates the complementarity between one- and two-photon interference (coherence and entanglement) in the spatial domain.