Time and space resolved first order optical interference between distinguishable photon paths

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates first-order optical interference between distinguishable, independent laser sources, revealing that interference can occur even when photon paths are known or distinguishable, challenging traditional which-path assumptions.

Contribution

It provides experimental evidence of interference between distinguishable photons with known paths, refining the understanding of the which-path criterion in quantum optics.

Findings

Interference observed between independent CW lasers with different frequencies.

Interference fringes are detected despite known or distinguishable photon paths.

Results suggest the need to refine the which-path criterion in non-degenerate frequency schemes.

Abstract

Interference between different photons occurs and has been observed under diverse experimental conditions. A necessary condition in order to obtain interference fringes is the existence of at least two possible paths and unknown which-path information. If the photon beams have different frequencies, stability of the sources and fast enough detectors are also required.First order interference between two truly independent CW laser sources is observed. Contrary to what is expected, interference is observed although the photon beams are distinguishable and the path is unequivocally known for each photon beam. Segments of the CW wavetrains are selected with an acousto optic modulator. Temporal and spatial interference are integrated in a single combined phenomenon via streak camera detection. The fringes displacement in the time-space interferograms reveal the trajectories of the labeled photons. These results indicate that in non-degenerate frequency schemes, the ontology has to be refined and the which path criterion must be precisely stated. If reference is made to the frequency labeled photons, the path of each photon is known, whereas if the query is stated in terms of the detected photons, the path is unknown.