Efficient Interaction of Heralded X-ray Photons with a Beam Splitter

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that heralded multi keV x-ray photons can interact efficiently with a beam splitter, showing that single x-ray photons do not split, highlighting x rays' advantages in quantum optics due to high fidelity and low background.

Contribution

First experimental demonstration of efficient heralded x-ray photon interaction with a beam splitter, confirming non-splitting of single x-ray photons and showcasing x rays' quantum optics potential.

Findings

Heralded x-ray photon rate at outputs is about 0.01 counts/sec.

Single x-ray photons do not split at the beam splitter.

High fidelity and negligible background in x-ray quantum optics experiments.

Abstract

We report the experimental demonstration of efficient interaction of multi kilo electron Volt heralded x-ray photons with a beam splitter. The measured heralded photon rate at the outputs of the beam splitter is about 0.01 counts/s which is comparable to the rate in the absence of the beam splitter. We use this beam splitter together with photon number and photon energy resolving detectors to show directly that single x ray photons cannot split. Our experiment demonstrates the major advantage of x rays for quantum optics: the possibility to observe experimental results with high fidelity and with negligible background.