ABSTRACT
Quantum interference of two independent particles in pure quantum states is fully described by the particles' distinguishability: the closer the particles are to being identical, the higher the degree of quantum interference. When more than two particles are involved, the situation becomes more complex and interference capability extends beyond pairwise distinguishability, taking on a surprisingly rich character. Here, we study many-particle interference using three photons. We show that the distinguishability between pairs of photons is not sufficient to fully describe the photons' behavior in a scattering process, but that a collective phase, the triad phase, plays a role. We are able to explore the full parameter space of three-photon interference by generating heralded single photons and interfering them in a fiber tritter. Using multiple degrees of freedom-temporal delays and polarization-we isolate three-photon interference from two-photon interference. Our experiment disproves the view that pairwise two-photon distinguishability uniquely determines the degree of nonclassical many-particle interference.
ABSTRACT
Boson sampling holds the potential to experimentally falsify the extended Church-Turing thesis. The computational hardness of boson sampling, however, complicates the certification that an experimental device yields correct results in the regime in which it outmatches classical computers. To certify a boson sampler, one needs to verify quantum predictions and rule out models that yield these predictions without true many-boson interference. We show that a semiclassical model for many-boson propagation reproduces coarse-grained observables that are proposed as witnesses of boson sampling. A test based on Fourier matrices is demonstrated to falsify physically plausible alternatives to coherent many-boson propagation.
ABSTRACT
The coherence time constitutes one of the most critical parameters that determines whether or not interference is observed in an experiment. For photons, it is traditionally determined by the effective spectral bandwidth of the photon. Here we report on multi-photon interference experiments in which the multi-photon coherence time, defined by the width of the interference signal, depends on the number of interfering photons and on the measurement scheme chosen to detect the particles. A theoretical analysis reveals that all multi-photon interferences with more than two particles feature this dependence, which can be attributed to higher-order effects in the mutual indistinguishability of the particles. As a striking consequence, a single, well-defined many-particle quantum state can exhibit qualitatively different degrees of interference, depending on the chosen observable. Therefore, optimal sensitivity in many-particle quantum interferometry can only be achieved by choosing a suitable detection scheme.
ABSTRACT
Quantum-mechanical wave-particle duality implies that probability distributions for granular detection events exhibit wave-like interference. On the single-particle level, this leads to self-interference--e.g., on transit across a double slit--for photons as well as for large, massive particles, provided that no which-way information is available to any observer, even in principle. When more than one particle enters the game, their specific many-particle quantum features are manifested in correlation functions, provided the particles cannot be distinguished. We are used to believe that interference fades away monotonically with increasing distinguishability--in accord with available experimental evidence on the single- and on the many-particle level. Here, we demonstrate experimentally and theoretically that such monotonicity of the quantum-to-classical transition is the exception rather than the rule whenever more than two particles interfere. As the distinguishability of the particles is continuously increased, different numbers of particles effectively interfere, which leads to interference signals that are, in general, nonmonotonic functions of the distinguishability of the particles. This observation opens perspectives for the experimental characterization of many-particle coherence and sheds light on decoherence processes in many-particle systems.
ABSTRACT
The composite character of two-fermion bosons manifests itself in the interference of many composites as a deviation from the ideal bosonic behavior. A state of many composite bosons can be represented as a superposition of different numbers of perfect bosons and fermions, which allows us to provide the full Hong-Ou-Mandel-like counting statistics of interfering composites. Our theory quantitatively relates the deviation from the ideal bosonic interference pattern to the entanglement of the fermions within a single composite boson.
