Photon statistics of superbunching pseudothermal light

TL;DR

This paper investigates the photon statistics of superbunching pseudothermal light using single-photon detectors, revealing deviations from thermal light and potential for generating non-Rayleigh speckles.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental measurement of photon statistics of superbunching pseudothermal light and analyzes its second-order coherence properties.

Findings

Photon distribution deviates from thermal light in the tail with higher second-order coherence.

Larger second-order coherence correlates with more pronounced deviations in photon statistics.

Results enhance understanding of two-photon superbunching with classical light.

Abstract

Superbunching pseudothermal light has important applications in studying the second- and higher-order interference of light in quantum optics. Unlike the photon statistics of thermal or pseudothermal light is well understood, the photon statistics of superbunching pseudothermal light has not been studied yet. In this paper, we will employ single-photon detectors to measure the photon statistics of superbunching pseudothermal light and calculate the degree of second-order coherence. It is found that the larger the value of the degree of second-order coherence of superbunching pseudothermal light is, the more the measured photon distribution deviates from the one of thermal or pseudothermal light in the tail part. The results are helpful to understand the physics of two-photon superbunching with classical light. It is suggested that superbunching pseudothermal light can be employed to generate non-Rayleigh temporal speckles.