Abstract
The Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) effect is widely regarded as the quintessential quantum interference phenomenon in optics. In this work we examine how nonlinearity can smear statistical photon bunching in the HOM interferometer. We model both the nonlinearity and a balanced beam splitter with a single two-level system and calculate a finite probability of anti-bunching arising in this geometry. We thus argue that the presence of such nonlinearity would reduce the visibility in the standard HOM setup, offering some explanation for the diminution of the HOM visibility observed in many experiments. We use the same model to show that the nonlinearity affects a resonant two-photon propagation through a two-level impurity in a waveguide due to a “weak photon blockade” caused by the impossibility of double-occupancy and argue that this effect might be stronger for multi-photon propagation.
Highlights
In this work we examine how nonlinearity can smear statistical photon bunching in the HOM interferometer. We model both the nonlinearity and a balanced beam splitter with a single two-level system and calculate a finite probability of anti-bunching arising in this geometry
We consider a wave-guided few-photon beam interacting with a single near-resonant atom that can be described as a two-level system (TLS)
In the HOM geometry, when the identical photons come from the opposite (β ≠ β′) channels without a time delay, the nonlinearity results in a nonzero probability PHOM(τ = 0) of detecting the two photons in different outgoing channels
Summary
We consider a wave-guided few-photon beam interacting with a single near-resonant atom that can be described as a two-level system (TLS) We assume that both incident and transmitted or reflected photons can propagate along two channels. We will describe how the effects of the nonlinearity caused by indirect photon interaction via scattering from the TLS change the probability Pαα′ ββ′ of two photons entering via channels β and β′ and exiting via channels α and α′ in the Results below In both cases of the HOM geometry (β ≠ β) and the resonance geometry (β = β′) we calculate the probability of photons leaving through different channels: PHOM = P12 12 + P 21 12 and Pres = P12 ββ + P 21 ββ. We argue that a non-ideal dip may result from the nonlinearity in the HOM beam splitter like that described by the Hamiltonian (1)
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