Observation of a nonclassical Berry’s phase for the photon

Abstract
Coincidence detection of photon pairs produced in parametric fluorescence, in conjunction with a Michelson interferometer in which one member of each pair acquired a geometrical phase due to a cycle in polarization states, has allowed the first observation of Berry’s phase at the single-photon level. We have verified that each interfering photon was essentially in an n=1 Fock state, by means of a beam splitter following the interferometer combined with a triple-coincidence technique. The results can be interpreted in terms of a nonlocal collapse of the wave function.

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