Multiphoton dynamics in tight-binding lattices: From fundamental physics to applied quantum photonics (Conference Presentation)

Abstract

Indistinguishable and/or entangled photons propagating in waveguide arrays (WAs) represent a promising platform whose utility ranges from research on fundamental aspects of quantum mechanics all the way to applications in quantum sensing and quantum information processing. Quantum simulators of decoherence reveal that while decoherence processes inevitably destroy single-particle coherence and any form of multiparticle entanglement, quantum correlations based on particle indistinguishability do endure. Further, by judiciously combining multi-photon states with the idea of synthetic dimensions in WAs yields the notion of a synthetic atom and in turn this provides entirely novel perspectives on the dynamics of such multi-photon states. Similarly, simple beam splitters fed with indistinguishable photons, can be used to perform discrete fractional Fourier transforms or can be tuned to realize exceptional points of any order. The latter setup facilitates efficient quantum-enhanced sensors.