English

Signatures of Hong-Ou-Mandel Interference at Microwave Frequencies

Quantum Physics 2015-06-15 v1 Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics Superconductivity

Abstract

Two-photon quantum interference at a beam splitter, commonly known as Hong-Ou-Mandel interference, was recently demonstrated with \emph{microwave-frequency} photons by Lang \emph{et al.}\,\cite{lang:microwaveHOM}. This experiment employed circuit QED systems as sources of microwave photons, and was based on the measurement of second-order cross-correlation and auto-correlation functions of the microwave fields at the outputs of the beam splitter. Here we present the calculation of these correlation functions for the cases of inputs corresponding to: (i) trains of \emph{pulsed} Gaussian or Lorentzian single microwave photons, and (ii) resonant fluorescent microwave fields from \emph{continuously-driven} circuit QED systems. The calculations include the effects of the finite bandwidth of the detection scheme. In both cases, the signature of two-photon quantum interference is a suppression of the second-order cross-correlation function for small delays. The experiment described in Ref. \onlinecite{lang:microwaveHOM} was performed with trains of \emph{Lorentzian} single photons, and very good agreement between the calculations and the experimental data was obtained.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1304.6068,
  title  = {Signatures of Hong-Ou-Mandel Interference at Microwave Frequencies},
  author = {M. J. Woolley and C. Lang and C. Eichler and A. Wallraff and A. Blais},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1304.6068},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

11 pages, 3 figures