English

Collective phases of identical particles interfering on linear multiports

Quantum Physics 2018-09-12 v3 Other Condensed Matter

Abstract

We introduce collective geometric phases of bosons and fermions interfering on a linear unitary multiport, where each phase depends on the internal states of identical particles (i.e., not affected by the multiport) and corresponds to a cycle of the symmetric group. We show that quantum interference of NN particles in generic pure internal states, i.e., with no pair being orthogonal, is governed by (N1)(N2)/2(N-1)(N-2)/2 independent triad phases (each involving only three particles). The deterministic distinguishability, preventing quantum interference with two or three particles, allows for the genuine (N4)(N\ge 4)-particle phase (interference) on a multiport: setting each particle to be deterministically distinguishable from all others except two by their internal states allows for a novel (circle-dance) interference of N4N\ge 4 particles governed by a collective NN-particle phase, while simultaneously preventing the RR-particle interference for 3RN13\le R\le N-1. The genuine NN-particle interference manifests the NNth order quantum correlations between identical particles at a multiport output, it does not appear in the marginal probability for a subset of the particles, e.g., it cannot be detected if at least one of the particles is lost. This means that the collective phases are not detectable by the usual "quantumness" criteria based on the second-order quantum correlations. The results can be useful for quantum computation, quantum information, and other quantum technologies with single photons. \end{abstract}

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1707.03893,
  title  = {Collective phases of identical particles interfering on linear multiports},
  author = {V. S. Shchesnovich and M. E. O. Bezerra},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1707.03893},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

13 pages, 2 figures (colored). Revision 2