Direct measurement of the biphoton Wigner function through two-photon interference

Abstract

The Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) experiment was a benchmark in quantum optics, evidencing the non–classical nature of photon pairs, later generalized to quantum systems with either bosonic or fermionic statistics. We show that a simple modification in the well-known and widely used HOM experiment provides the direct measurement of the Wigner function. We apply our results to one of the most reliable quantum systems, consisting of biphotons generated by parametric down conversion. A consequence of our results is that a negative value of the Wigner function is a sufficient condition for non-gaussian entanglement between two photons. In the general case, the Wigner function provides all the required information to infer entanglement using well known necessary and sufficient criteria. The present work offers a new vision of the HOM experiment that further develops its possibilities to realize fundamental tests of quantum mechanics using simple optical set-ups.