Erlangen 2022 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 6: Quantum Optics (Miscellaneous) I
Q 6.3: Vortrag
Montag, 14. März 2022, 14:45–15:00, Q-H14
Many-particle coherence and higher-order interference — •Marc-Oliver Pleinert1, Eric Lutz2, and Joachim von Zanthier1 — 1Institut für Optik, Information und Photonik, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), 91058 Erlangen, Germany — 2Institute for Theoretical Physics I, University of Stuttgart, 70550 Stuttgart, Germany
Quantum mechanics is based on a set of only a few postulates, which can be separated into two parts: one part governing the ‘inner’ structure, i.e., the definition and dynamics of the state space, the wave function and the observables; and one part making the connection to experiments. The latter is known as Born’s rule, which - simply put - relates detection probabilities to the modulus square of the wave function. The resulting structure of quantum theory permits interference of indistinguishable paths; but, at the same time, limits such interference to certain interference orders. In general, quantum mechanics allows for interference up to order 2M in M-particle correlations. Depending on the mutual coherence of the particles, however, the related interference hierarchy can terminate earlier. Here, we show that mutually coherent particles can exhibit interference of the highest orders allowed. We further demonstrate that interference of mutually incoherent particles truncates already at order M+1 although interference of the latter is principally more multifaceted due to a significantly higher number of different final states. Finally, we demonstrate the disparate vanishing of such higher-order interference terms as a function of coherence in experiments with mutually coherent and incoherent sources.