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arXiv:quant-ph/0301060 · Chinese Physics Letters

Coalescence and Anti-Coalescence Interference of Two-Photon Wavepacket in a Beam Splitter

Kaige Wang, Guojian Yang

Published Feb 1, 2004• 7 citations
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Abstract

We study theoretically the interference of a two-photon wavepacket in a beam splitter. We find that the spectrum symmetry for the two-photon wavepacket dominates the perfect coalescence and anti-coalescence interference. The coalescence interference is unrelated to photon entanglement. Only the anti-coalescence interference has evidence of photon entanglement. We prove that the two-photon wavepacket with an anti-symmetric spectrum is transparent to pass the 50/50 beam splitter, showing perfect anti-coalescence interference.

DOI
10.1088/0256-307x/21/2/024

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We study theoretically the interference of a two-photon wavepacket in a beam splitter. We find that the spectrum symmetry for the two-photon wavepacket dominates the perfect coalescence and anti-coalescence interference. The coalescence interference is unrelated to photon entanglement. Only the anti-coalescence interference has evidence of photon entanglement. We prove that the two-photon wavepacket with an anti-symmetric spectrum is transparent to pass the 50/50 beam splitter, showing perfect anti-coalescence interference.
A general theory is derived for the interference of a two-photon wavepacket in a beamsplitter. The theory is presented in the Schrödinger picture so that the quantum nature of the two-photon interference is explicitly revealed. We find that the topological symmetry of the probability-amplitude spectrum of the two-photon wavepacket dominates the nature of the two-photon interference, which may be distinguished by the increase or decrease of the coincidence probability in the absence of interference. However, two-photon entanglement can be identified by the nature of the interference. We demonstrate the necessary and sufficient conditions for perfect two-photon interference. It is shown that a two-photon entangled state with an anti-symmetric spectrum passes through a 50/50 beamsplitter with perfect transparency. The theory provides us with a unified understanding of the various two-photon interference effects.
We present a general theory on the interference of a two-photon wave packet associated with spatial modes at a beam splitter. We find that the topological symmetry of the two-photon angular spectrum governs the nature of the two-photon interference. We distinguish between the coalescence interference and anticoalescence interference according to the decrease or increase of the coincidence probability in the absence of interference, respectively, and demonstrate that the symmetric and antisymmetric two-photon angular spectra are responsible for perfect coalescence interference and anticoalescence interference, respectively. Then we prove that anticoalescence interference never occurs for two independent photons, and it turns out that anticoalescence interference is the signature of two-photon entanglement. On the basis of this feature, we propose a special Mach-Zehnder interferometer, incorporated with two spiral phase plates, which can change the interference from a coalescence to an anticoalescence type only for a two-photon entangled state. The scheme is simple and straightforward compared with a test of Bell's inequality.
Quantum interferences based on beam splitting are widely used for entanglement. However, the quantitative measurement of the entanglement in terms of temporal modes and wavepacket shaping facilitated by this entanglement remain unexplored. Here we analytically study the interference of two photons with different temporal shapes through a beam splitter (BS) and then propose its application in temporal entanglement and shaping of photons. The temporal entanglement described by Von Neumann entropy is determined by the splitting ratio of BS and temporal indistinguishability of input photons. We found that maximum mode entanglement can be achieved with a 50/50 BS configuration, enabling the generation of a Bell state encoded in temporal modes, independent of the exact form of the input photons. Then, detecting one of the entangled photons at a specific time enables the probabilistic shaping of the other photon. This process can shape the exponentially decaying (ED) wavepacket into the ED sine shapes, which can be further shaped into Gaussian shapes with a fidelity exceeding 99%. The temporal entanglement and shaping of photons based on interference may solve the shape mismatch issues in large-scale optical quantum networks.