title: General rules for bosonic bunching in multimode interferometers.
abstract: We perform a comprehensive set of experiments that characterize bosonic bunching of up to three photons in interferometers of up to 16 modes. Our experiments verify two rules that govern bosonic bunching. The first rule, obtained recently, predicts the average behavior of the bunching probability and is known as the bosonic birthday paradox. The second rule is new and establishes a n!-factor quantum enhancement for the probability that all n bosons bunch in a single output mode, with respect to the case of distinguishable bosons. In addition to its fundamental importance in phenomena such as Bose-Einstein condensation, bosonic bunching can be exploited in applications such as linear optical quantum computing and quantum-enhanced metrology.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Fisica, Sapienza Università di Roma, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, I-00185 Roma, Italy.
authors.forename: Nicolò
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Spagnolo
authors.forename: Chiara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Vitelli
authors.forename: Linda
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sansoni
authors.forename: Enrico
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Maiorino
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mataloni
authors.forename: Fabio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Sciarrino
authors.forename: Daniel J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Brod
authors.forename: Ernesto F
authors.initials: EF
authors.lastname: Galvão
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Crespi
authors.forename: Roberta
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ramponi
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Osellame