Hannover 2020 – scientific programme
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 12: Quantum Effects
Q 12.3: Talk
Monday, March 9, 2020, 14:30–14:45, f442
Are photons really bosons? — •Chris Müller1, Konrad Tschernig2, Malte Smoor1, Tim Kroh1, Armando Perez-Leija2, Kurt Busch1,2, and Oliver Benson1 — 1Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany — 2Max-Born-Institut, Germany
Quantum electrodynamics introduces photons as bosons, that means their joint wavefunction is symmetric under particle exchange. So far the bosonic nature of photons has been demonstrated only indirectly, e.g. by observing photon bunching in the Hong-Ou-Mandel effect [1]. It would be highly interesting to measure the exchange phase φ directly, which should be zero for bosons and π for fermions. Another possibility is the exotic anyon, where the exchange phase can have values different from 0 or π. Protocols for measuring the exchange phase using massive particles, have been recently proposed [3].
Here, we present a novel joint theoretical and experimental approach to measure the exchange phase of photons directly. Our setup consists of two coupled Mach-Zehnder interferometers fed by indistinguishable photon pairs generated in a cavity-enhanced parametric down-conversion source [4]. We will show our first results of measuring the exchange phase of photons and discuss the sensitivity for potential deviations from the expected value of zero.
[1] C. K. Hong et al., Physical Review Letters 59, 2044, 1987
[2] C. F. Roos et al., Physical Review Letters 119, 160401, 2017
[3] A. Ahlrichs et al., Applied Physics Letter 108, 021111, 2016