English

Symmetry allows for distinguishability in totally destructive many-particle interference

Quantum Physics 2021-06-02 v1 Optics

Abstract

We investigate, in a four photon interference experiment in a laser-written waveguide structure, how symmetries control the suppression of many-body output events of a JxJ_x unitary. We show that totally destructive interference does not require mutual indistinguishability between all, but only between symmetrically paired particles, in agreement with recent theoretical predictions. The outcome of the experiment is well described by a quantitative simulation which accounts for higher order emission of the photon source, imbalances in the scattering network, partial distinguishability, and photon loss.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2102.10017,
  title  = {Symmetry allows for distinguishability in totally destructive many-particle interference},
  author = {Julian Münzberg and Christoph Dittel and Maxime Lebugle and Andreas Buchleitner and Alexander Szameit and Gregor Weihs and Robert Keil},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2102.10017},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

14 pages, 7 figures