Statistical-noise-enhanced multi-photon interference

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that in three-photon interference within symmetric circuits, engineered super-Poissonian photon-number fluctuations can enhance visibility beyond single-photon levels, revealing a statistical complementarity between quantum and classical advantages.

Contribution

It uncovers that photon statistics can be engineered to maximize interference visibility, challenging the monotonic degradation observed in two-photon cases and revealing a new trade-off in multi-photon interference.

Findings

Super-Poissonian photon fluctuations maximize visibility.

Visibility hierarchy can invert by tuning circuit parameters.

Quantum and classical advantages are mutually exclusive.

Abstract

Photon statistics plays a governing role in multi-photon interference. While interference visibility in the standard two-photon case, known as Hong-Ou-Mandel interference, monotonically degrades with higher intensity correlation functions, we show that this monotonicity does not hold for three-photon interference in symmetric circuits. We reveal that, in the discrete Fourier transform circuit, engineered super-Poissonian photon-number fluctuations, realized using a modulated laser, maximize the visibility, surpassing the magnitude of the single-photon signature. In addition, by tuning the symmetric circuit parameters, we demonstrate that the visibility hierarchy inverts relative to the benchmark of Poissonian statistics. This trade-off implies that quantum and classical advantages are mutually exclusive resources for interference, indicating a form of statistical complementarity.