Time-Resolved Two-Photon Quantum Interference
Preprint
- 4 August 2003
Abstract
The interference of two independent single-photon pulses impinging on a beam splitter is analysed in a generalised time-resolved manner. Different aspects of the phenomenon are elaborated using different representations of the single-photon wave packets, like the decomposition into single-frequency field modes or spatio-temporal modes matching the photonic wave packets. Both representations lead to equivalent results, and a photon-by-photon analysis reveals that the quantum-mechanical two-photon interference can be interpreted as a classical one-photon interference once a first photon is detected. A novel time-dependent quantum-beat effect is predicted if the interfering photons have different frequencies. The calculation also reveals that full two-photon fringe visibility can be achieved under almost any circumstances by applying a temporal filter to the signal.Keywords
All Related Versions
- Version 1, 2003-08-04, ArXiv
- Published version: Applied Physics B Laser and Optics, 77 (8), 797.
This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: