Multimode Hong-Ou-mandel interference.
We consider multimode two-photon interference at a beam splitter by photons created by spontaneous parametric down-conversion. The resulting interference pattern is shown to depend upon the transverse spatial symmetry of the pump beam. In an experiment, we employ the first-order Hermite-Gaussian modes in order to show that, by manipulating the pump beam, one can control the resulting two-photon interference behavior. We expect these results to play an important role in the engineering of quantum states of light for use in quantum information processing and quantum imaging.
Walborn
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Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Caixa Postal 702, Belo Horizonte, MG 30123-970, Brazil. swalborn@fisica.ufmg.br
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