Measurement-defined control of single-particle interference

TL;DR

This paper reveals that single-particle interference is governed by the relative phase between the quantum state and measurement basis, demonstrating a unified framework that controls interference via measurement-defined modes across different regimes.

Contribution

It introduces a measurement-defined interference law using entangled biphoton sources, unifying various quantum optical phenomena within a common framework.

Findings

Sinusoidal fringes with high visibility ($V\\approx0.99$) are produced by scanning different phase differences.

Fringe visibility is controlled by the idler-state overlap, encoding quantum distinguishability.

The measurement-defined interference law applies from single-photon to high-flux regimes.

Abstract

Interference is conventionally attributed to path-accumulated phase differences, with measurement treated as a passive readout. Here we demonstrate that single-particle interference is governed by the relative phase between the prepared quantum state and the detector-defined measurement basis -- a joint quantity that is operationally inaccessible in any conventional interferometer. Using coherently seeded entangled nonlinear biphoton sources, we show that independently scanning the pump phase difference, the seed phase difference, or the signal interferometric phase each produces identical sinusoidal fringes ($V\approx0.99$) -- a three-scan equivalence impossible in any two-mode interferometer. The fringe visibility is continuously controlled through the idler-state overlap, directly encoding quantum distinguishability without idler detection. The same measurement-defined interference law persists from the single-photon to the high-flux regime. The bright-dark collective-state structure demonstrated here unifies coherent population trapping and electromagnetically induced transparency in atomic $\Lambda$-systems, discrete photonic interference, and single-slit diffraction within a common framework differing only in dark-subspace dimensionality, establishing measurement-defined photonic modes as a fundamental resource for quantum photonics.