We consider multimode two-photon interference at a beam splitter by photons created by spontaneous parametric down-conversion. The resulting interference pattern is shown to depend upon the transverse spatial symmetry of the pump beam. In an experiment, we employ the first-order Hermite-Gaussian modes in order to show that, by manipulating the pump beam, one can control the resulting two-photon interference behavior. We expect these results to play an important role in the engineering of quantum states of light for use in quantum information processing and quantum imaging.
Cite
@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0212017,
title = {Multimode Hong-Ou-Mandel interference},
author = {S. P. Walborn and A. N. de Oliveira and S. Pádua and C. H. Monken},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0212017},
year = {2009}
}