Anti-Hong-Ou-Mandel effect with entangled photons and lossy beamsplitter
Anton N. Vetlugin, Ruixiang Guo, Cesare Soci, Nikolay I. Zheludev · 2021
Classical Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) effect – two-particle interference on a lossless beamsplitter, reveals the fundamental difference between bosonic and fermionic particles. As a result of such interference, pairs of bosons coalesce while pairs of fermions anti-coalesce. Here we report an observation of the anti-HOM effect where bosons anti-coalesce and fermions show coalescent-like behavior when interfere on a lossy beamsplitter. By exploiting two-photon entangled states, we provide an experimental demonstration of the anti-HOM effect for both bosonic and fermionic spatial wavefunctions of the photons. This fundamental phenomenon may enrich quantum information and metrology protocols where states of entangled photons are dynamically converted.