Coherence and indistinguishability

It has long been known that the interference produced by two light beams is related both to their mutual coherence and also to the intrinsic indistinguishability of the photon paths. With the help of a decomposition of the density operator it is shown that the degree of indistinguishability equals t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Optics letters 1991-12, Vol.16 (23), p.1882-1883
Main Author: MANDEL, L
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Exact sciences and technology
Fundamental areas of phenomenology (including applications)
Optics
Physics
Wave optics
Wave propagation, transmission and absorption
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Summary:It has long been known that the interference produced by two light beams is related both to their mutual coherence and also to the intrinsic indistinguishability of the photon paths. With the help of a decomposition of the density operator it is shown that the degree of indistinguishability equals the degree of coherence. This provides the fundamental link between the wave and the particle descriptions.
ISSN:0146-9592
1539-4794
DOI:10.1364/OL.16.001882