Hong-Ou-Mandel interference of entangled Hermite-Gauss modes

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates experimentally how entangled photon pairs in Hermite-Gauss modes exhibit Hong-Ou-Mandel interference, revealing how their symmetry properties in different bases affect interference outcomes.

Contribution

It introduces a method to manipulate entangled states in the Hermite-Gauss basis using Dove prisms and analyzes their interference behavior in the HOM setup.

Findings

Symmetric Bell states in LG basis remain symmetric in HG basis, resulting in no coincidence events.

Antisymmetric Bell states in LG basis remain antisymmetric in HG basis, producing coincidence events.

Manipulation of entangled states affects HOM interference outcomes based on their symmetry properties.

Abstract

Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interference is demonstrated experimentally for entangled photon pairs in the Hermite-Gauss (HG) basis. We use two Dove prisms in one of the paths of the photons to manipulate the entangled quantum state that enters the HOM interferometer. It is demonstrated that, when entangled photon pairs are in a symmetric Bell state in the Laguerre-Gauss (LG) basis, then they will remain symmetric after decomposing them into the HG basis, thereby resulting in no coincidence events after the HOM interference. On the other hand, if the photon pairs are in an antisymmetric Bell state in the LG basis, then they will also be antisymmetric in the HG basis, thereby producing only coincidence events as a result of the HOM interference.