Fermionic statistics suppresses Fano resonances

TL;DR

This paper experimentally demonstrates how fermionic quantum statistics suppress Fano resonances in a two-particle photonic system, revealing fundamental differences from bosonic behavior in multi-particle quantum interference.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental observation of fermionic suppression of Fano resonances in a multi-particle, non-interacting quantum system using photonic lattices.

Findings

Fano interference observed in two-photon states

Fermionic statistics suppress Fano resonance

Bosonic and fermionic differences in decay processes

Abstract

Fano resonances and bound states with energy in the continuum are ubiquitous phenomena in different areas of physics. Observations, however, have been limited so far to single-particle processes. In this work we experimentally investigate the multi-particle case and observe Fano interference in a non-interacting two-particle Fano-Anderson model by considering propagation of two-photon states in engineered photonic lattices. We demonstrate that the quantum statistics of the particles, either bosonic or fermionic, strongly affects the decay process. Remarkably, we find that the Fano resonance, when two discrete levels are coupled to a continuum, is suppressed in the fermionic case.