https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/s10053-025-01043-5
Regular Article - Quantum Optics
A generalized formulation of two-particle interference
1
Department of Physics, Jamia Millia Islamia, 110025, New Delhi, India
2
Centre for Theoretical Physics, Jamia Millia Islamia, 110025, New Delhi, India
Received:
1
May
2025
Accepted:
16
July
2025
Published online:
4
August
2025
Two-photon interference is an interesting quantum phenomenon that is usually captured in two distinct types of experiments, namely the Hanbury Brown–Twiss (HBT) experiment and the Hong–Ou–Mandel (HOM) experiment. While the HBT experiment was carried out much earlier in 1956, with classical light, the demonstration of the HOM effect came much later in 1987. Unlike the former, the latter has frequently been argued to be a purely quantum effect. A generalized formulation of two-particle interference is presented here. The HOM and the quantum HBT effects emerge as special cases in the general analysis. A realizable two-particle interference experiment, which is intermediate between the two effects, is proposed and analyzed. Thus two-particle interference is shown to be a single phenomenon with various possible implementations, including the HBT and HOM setups.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to EDP Sciences, SIF and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2025
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
