English

Statistical-noise-enhanced multi-photon interference

Quantum Physics 2026-01-16 v1 Optics

Abstract

Photon statistics plays a governing role in multi-photon interference. While interference visibility in the standard two-photon case, known as Hong-Ou-Mandel interference, monotonically degrades with higher intensity correlation functions, we show that this monotonicity does not hold for three-photon interference in symmetric circuits. We reveal that, in the discrete Fourier transform circuit, engineered super-Poissonian photon-number fluctuations, realized using a modulated laser, maximize the visibility, surpassing the magnitude of the single-photon signature. In addition, by tuning the symmetric circuit parameters, we demonstrate that the visibility hierarchy inverts relative to the benchmark of Poissonian statistics. This trade-off implies that quantum and classical advantages are mutually exclusive resources for interference, indicating a form of statistical complementarity.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.09977,
  title  = {Statistical-noise-enhanced multi-photon interference},
  author = {Rikizo Ikuta},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.09977},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

11 pages, 6 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T09:05:08.269Z