Generation of N00N-like interferences with two thermal light sources

Daniel Bhatti; Anton Classen; Steffen Oppel; Raimund Schneider; Joachim von Zanthier

doi:10.1140/epjd/e2018-90371-8

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2023 Impact factor 1.5

Atomic, Molecular, Optical and Plasma Physics

Topical Issue: Quantum Correlations

Eur. Phys. J. D (2018) 72: 191
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2018-90371-8

Regular Article

Generation of N00N-like interferences with two thermal light sources^★

Daniel Bhatti¹^,2^a, Anton Classen¹^,2, Steffen Oppel¹, Raimund Schneider¹^,2 and Joachim von Zanthier¹^,2

¹ Institut für Optik, Information und Photonik, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), 91058 Erlangen, Germany
² Erlangen Graduate School in Advanced Optical Technologies (SAOT), Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), 91052 Erlangen, Germany

^a e-mail: daniel.bhatti@fau.de

Received: 26 July 2018
Published online: 1 November 2018

Abstract

Measuring the Mth-order intensity correlation function of light emitted by two statistically independent thermal light sources may display N00N-like interferences of arbitrary order N = M∕2. We show that via a particular choice of detector positions one can isolate M-photon quantum paths where either all M photons are emitted from the same source or M∕2 photons are collectively emitted by both sources. The latter superposition displays N00N-like oscillations with N = M∕2 which may serve, e.g., in astronomy, for imaging two distant thermal sources with M∕2-fold increased resolution. We also discuss slightly modified detection schemes improving the visibility of the N00N-like interference pattern and present measurements verifying the theoretical predictions.