Hong-Ou-Mandel interference of composite particles

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the internal structure and exchange symmetry of composite particles affect Hong-Ou-Mandel interference, revealing that interactions between constituents influence interference contrast in lattice scattering.

Contribution

It introduces a model for composite particles with internal interactions and analyzes their interference behavior, highlighting the impact of constituent interactions on quantum interference.

Findings

Composite particles exhibit reduced interference contrast due to internal interactions.

Exchange symmetry and mutual interactions between constituents modify interference patterns.

Effective nearest-neighbour interactions emerge from constituent interactions in tightly bound composites.

Abstract

We study the Hong-Ou-Mandel interference of two identical, composite particles, each formed of two bosonic or fermionic constituents, as they scatter against a potential barrier in a one-dimensional lattice. For tightly bound composites, we show that the combination of their constituents' mutual interactions and exchange symmetry gives rise to an effective nearest-neighbour interaction between composites, which induces a reduction of the interference contrast.