Direct observation of the particle exchange phase of photons

TL;DR

This paper reports a direct measurement of the particle exchange phase of photons, providing clear experimental evidence of their bosonic nature through interference experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a method to directly observe the exchange phase of identical particles, advancing understanding of quantum symmetry properties.

Findings

Measured the exchange phase of photons directly

Confirmed the bosonic character of photons

Demonstrated interference-based detection of particle symmetry

Abstract

Quantum theory stipulates that if two particles are identical in all physical aspects, the allowed states of the system are either symmetric or antisymmetric with respect to permutations of the particle labels. Experimentally, the symmetry of the states can be inferred indirectly from the fact that neglecting the correct exchange symmetry in the theoretical analysis leads to dramatic discrepancies with the observations. The only way to directly unveil the symmetry of the states for, say, two identical particles is through the interference of the original state and the physically permuted one, and measure the phase associated with the permutation process, the so-called particle exchange phase. Following this idea, we have measured the exchange phase of indistinguishable photons, providing direct evidence of the bosonic character of photons.