The optical interference constitutes a paramount resource in modern physics. At the scale of individual atoms and photons, it is a diverse concept that causes different coherent phenomena. We present the experimental characterization of both coherent and statistical properties of light emitted from ensembles of trapped ions increasing with a number of contributing phase-incoherent independent atomic particles ranging from a single to up to several hundreds. It conclusively demonstrates how super-Poissonian quantum statistics non-trivially arises purely from the finite number of indistinguishable single-photon emitters in the limit of a single detection mode. The achieved new optical emission regime in which these independent atoms contribute coherently to the super-Poissonian statistics provides a new perspective on the emergence of optical coherence at the atomic scale and constitutes a unique toolbox for its generation and control at the most microscopic level.
@article{arxiv.2209.09059,
title = {Emergence of super-Poissonian light from indistinguishable single-photon emitters},
author = {A. Kovalenko and D. Babjak and A. Lešundák and L. Podhora and L. Lachman and P. Obšil and T. Pham and O. Číp and R. Filip and L. Slodička},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2209.09059},
year = {2022}
}