Entanglement indicators for quantum optical fields: three-mode multiport beamsplitters EPR interference experiments

We generalize a new approach to entanglement conditions for light of undefined photons numbers given in [Phys. Rev. A {\bf 95}, 042113 (2017)] for polarization correlations to a broader family of interferometric phenomena. Integrated optics allows one to perform experiments based upon multiport beamsplitters. To observe entanglement effects one can use multi-mode parametric down-conversion emissions. When the structure of the Hamiltonian governing the emissions has (infinitely) many equivalent Schmidt decompositions into modes (beams), one can have perfect EPR-like correlations of numbers of photons emitted into "conjugate modes" which can be monitored at spatially separated detection stations. We provide entanglement conditions for experiments involving three modes on each side, and three-input-three-output multiport beamsplitters, and show their violations by bright squeezed vacuum states. We show that a condition expressed in terms of averages of observed rates is a much better entanglement indicator than a related one for the usual intensity variables. Thus the rates seem to emerge as a powerful concept in quantum optics, especially for fields of undefined intensities.