2003/11/04 by Kaige Wang, Wang, Kaige · 2 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Laser-Matter Interactions and Applications #Photonic and Optical Devices #Quantum Physics (quant-ph) #Quantum optics and atomic interactions #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.quant-ph/0311011
21 pages, 12 figures
arxiv created 2003/11/04 · openalex publication_date 2003/11/04 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We study a general theory on the interference of a two-photon wavepacket in a beam splitter. The theory is carried out in the Schrödinger picture so that the quantum nature of the two-photon interference is explicitly presented. We find that the topological symmetry of the probability-amplitude spectrum of the two-photon wavepacket dominates the manners of two-photon interference which are distinguished according to increasing and decreasing the coincidence probability for the absence of interference. However, two-photon entanglement can be witnessed by the interference manner. We demonstrate the necessary and sufficient conditions for the perfect two-photon interference. For a two-photon entangled state with an anti-symmetric spectrum, it passes a 50/50 beam splitter with the perfect transparency. The theory contributes an unified understanding to a variety of the two-photon interference effects.