A new analysis of multi-photon interference
Lei Chen, Chuan‐Feng Li, Ming Gong, Fang‐Wen Sun, Guang‐Can Guo · Europhysics Letters (EPL) · 2009
We consider photons as wave packets in time domain and analyze the Hong-Ou-Mandel–type interferences in different conditions. The general analytic formula of the 2 N -photon interference is deduced. It is shown that the widths of the time interval distributions of the 2 N -fold coincidence are proportional to the widths of the photon wave packets and inversely proportional to . Good agreement between previous experimental results and our theory for 2- and 4-photon interferences confirms the validity of this method. The method is also generalized to multi-beam interference and some new phenomena compared with two-beam interference are obtained.